LenEdgerly.com

2009-10-13T09:20:00.001-06:00

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Moving Day

2009-05-02T15:05:00.004-06:00

With the help of Adam Weiss, I have revamped my blog and related media sites. The new site is http://www.LenEdgerly.com . This original Blogger site will remain as a backup archive, but everything on it has been copied to my new digital home, where I will begin posting any new content from here on.

As part of Adam's great work, we separated media posts from written/photo posts at www.VideoPodChronicles.com and imported all of the written/photo posts to LenEdgerly.com . I will continue to upload my video podcast here, and my Audio Pod Chronicles will remain at its current home. You can subscribe to either of those podcasts in the iTunes Store.

None of these changes affects The Kindle Chronicles, my Friday audio podcast about the Amazon Kindle, still located here.

Trying out AudioBoo for Hawai'i Workshop

2009-04-25T16:46:00.000-06:00

Listen!

Interviewing with the Person-al Touch

2009-03-07T06:51:00.006-07:00

Bryan Person interviewed me yesterday via Skype video, a reverse of our roles from the podcast episode in which I interviewed him in his previous incarnation at Monster.com in Maynard, Mass. He and his family have relocated to Austin, Texas, where he works as a social media evangelist at LiveWorld, Inc., and continues to expand his reach as a social media leader through his blog, his podcasting, and his event organizing.

After 33 interviews for The Kindle Chronicles, it was fun to sit on the other side of the Skype recording. Bryan had a clear plan for the interview, beginning with my thoughts on the demise of The Rocky Mountain News and segueing into the Kindle's effect on the newspaper business and my work on the Kindle podcast. As I think about how positive an experience it was to be interviewed by Bryan, I am moved to offer these tips for great interviews:

1. Spend time researching your guest's work.
As a guest, I knew I was in good hands when I realized Bryan knew exactly how long I've been doing The Kindle Chronicles, and what I'd Twittered about the Rocky's last issue. He also knew that the bonging sound that accompanied us at one point was my great-grandfather's clock, something I've mentioned from time to time in my podcast. His preparation set me at ease and let me know that I was in good hands.

2. Listen, listen, listen
When Bryan asked a question, I could see from the video that he leaned back and listened to my reply. I never had the feeling that he was impatient for me to finish so he could ask his next question. It was as if each question was the last of the interview, and I had all the time in the world to respond. He also asked followup questions based on what I said. When I remembered that I had bought my Kindle a month after they were released in 2007, he wryly asked how come I had taken that long.

3. Get the technical stuff right
Bryan had worked out the method of using Skype video and Call Recorder to do the interview, so there was a minimum of horsing around to set up the conversation. That's another way to set your guest at ease.

4. Be the director of your show
I'm a big believer in the Rule of Thirds for composing still and video images, so I began sitting slightly off to the side of my camera's frame. Bryan realized this would look odd when the two videos were arranged side by side, so he suggested I move to the center of the camera's view. This made all the difference. Envision how you want your podcast interview to look or sound in its final version, and don't be afraid to guide the setup in order to achieve it.

5. Keep your audience in mind
Bryan made sure we drew on my experience with The Kindle Chronicles for ideas that might be useful to other companies taking advantage of brand enthusiasts' independent podcasts or other media. It's good during the interview to imagine your audience and ask yourself, "I wonder what they'd be asking now of this guest?"

All in all, it was fun and enlightening to sit down for an interview with my social media friend Bryan Person. If he gives you a call for an interview, be sure to drop everything and prepare for a very satisfying experience.

A Poem of My Own

2009-02-15T08:11:00.004-07:00

PUTTING ON AIRS

Here are a few of my favorites:

The air of an unknown genius running out of time.
The air of a dangerous mother's boy.
The air of a French spy on vacation in Wyoming.
The air of a knave flying First Class.

The air of a cad learning the joys of fidelity.
The air of a trapper dining in tails at the Village Inn.
The air of a POW digging to freedom with a spoon.
The air of a mouse herding elephants to safety.

The air of a hunchback looking for his cathedral.
The air of a gargoyle breathing in stone.
The air of a guru who missed his bus to the interfaith rally.
The air of a panhandler issuing edicts.

The air of a poet whose tech startup can't miss.
The air of a political genius from the next administration.
The air of just another bozo on the bus.
The air of a man who blogs regularly.

An Evangelical Bears Witness to Obama's Faith

2009-01-04T20:34:00.011-07:00

Why did Barack Obama chose the Rev. Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation? Anyone really curious about this question would do well to read Stephen Mansfield's The Faith of Barack Obama, a highly original portrait of the President-Elect published last year in the midst of the presidential campaign.

Mansfield is an evangelical Christian, and he makes a point of saying that he disagrees with Obama on many political issues. But I believe the author does a fair job of probing and representing Obama's faith. Here's a sample:

For Obama, faith is not simply political garb, something a focus group told him he ought to try. Instead, religion to him is transforming, lifelong, and real. It is who he is at the core, what he has raised his daughters to live, and the well he will draw from as he leads. While Americans are used to religious insincerity from their political leaders, Obama seems to be sincere in what he proclaims. He embraced religion long before he embraced politics. Indeed, it was his faith that gave him the will to serve in public office, and the worldview of that faith that shaped his understanding of what he would do once he came to power.

Mansfield seems torn sometimes between his admiration of Obama's faith and the realization that it does not conform with evangelical norms. The author at one point refers to Obama's "unorthodox spirituality," and he notes with apparent discomfort the importance that doubt plays in Obama's view of faith, and Obama's respect for non-Christian religions.

The Rev. Rick Warren makes an appearance in the book when Mansfield describes a joint appearance by Obama and Presidential candidate Sam Brownback at a 2006 World AIDS Day summit sponsored by Warren's Saddleback mega-church. Brownback said he felt more comfortable than he had the previous time he and Obama had shared a stage. The story continues,

...."We were both addressing the NACCP," he [Brownback] told the crowd of several thousand. "They were very polite to me. I think they kind of wondered, 'Who's this guy from Kansas?' And then Barack Obama follows, and they're going, 'Okay, now we've got Elvis.'"

Assuming that Warren's evangelical church would be home turf for a conservative Roman Catholic like himself, Brownback then turned to Obama and said, "Welcome to my house!" The audience exploded with laughter and applause. A few moments later, though, Obama took the stage and said, "There is one thing I have to say, Sam. This is my house, too. This is God's house."

Once again, Obama showed his skill at intercepting the political long pass. Brownback intended an appeal to his base. Obama wasn't having it. Refusing to yield an inch of the religious high ground, he made it clear to all that not only would he not be moved from his rightful place in the Christian fold, but he would also not allow newcomers to the crisis of AIDS, newcomers like Warren's evangelicals, to forget that Obama's political tribe began addressing that issue long ago. Be a Christian with me, Sam, he was saying, but don't act like my older brother. This is my house, too.

I'm not sure how to connect this story with Obama's pick of Rick Warren for the inauguration, which has caused genuine anguish among gay supporters, because of Warren's clumsy and hurtful statements about gays. Perhaps the point of Obama's faith is how it enables him to go where focus-group Christian politicians would fear to tread. He's sure enough of his spiritual foundation that he feels at home within a congregation that probably included a mere handful who would consider voting for him. He likewise will no doubt stand his ground with Rick Warren against criticism from many longtime Obama supporters, including New York Times columnist Frank Rich.

Ever since Obama declared in his national political debut in 2004 that "we worship an awesome God in the Blue States," he has confounded those who didn't take his words or his faith seriously. Mansfield's enlightening book is a good way to learn more about where the next President is coming from, and how he'll stay centered in the tumultuous days and years ahead.

Night Notes

2008-12-14T02:26:00.002-07:00

I'm up in the middle of the night, reading my Kindle, exploring corners of Amazon I hadn't known about. My wife and I returned from a quick trip to Denver yesterday evening. Today we'll attend an "Organizing for Change Conference" at the Kennedy School, put on by Harvard Students for Change. We're not sure what this will be about, actually, but we intend to help Obama in any way we can, after lots of work on the campaign.

I haven't used this blog for actual writing in a while. I'm not sure what that might look like, and 4:30 am is not the best time to take on new commitments. I've pulled back from my discipline of posting to the Audio Pod Chronicles or Video Pod Chronicles every week, in order to focus on The Kindle Chronicles, which is really taking off in terms of active and engaged listeners. I'll continue to have lots to do as the recently reelected Board President of our condo association in Denver. But I do miss writing. I haven't written a poem in months. My handsome leather writing notebook comes back and forth with me between Denver and Cambridge, Mass., but I seldom give myself the pleasure of putting ink on its pages. My red Lamy fountain pen is dried up from lack of use.

So I might come hang out with myself and whoever stops by here at my blog a little more often. And as 5 a.m. approaches it would be a good idea to return to bed for another couple of hours of sleep!

Future Podcasters of Montana

2008-11-15T13:58:00.008-07:00

At today's Art of Leadership marketing workshop hosted by the Montana Arts Council, I invited the participating Billings arts organizations to create pilot podcasts. Here are the results:

I am YAM - Yellowstone Art Museum.

Live from the Alberta Bair Theater - Alberta Bair Theatre.

MAAE Matters - Montana Alliance for Arts Education

Save the Stories - Billings Preservation Society

Venture Blurb - Venture Theatre

Update: Videos from the session are here and here.

Live from Billings, Montana!

2008-11-15T07:13:00.002-07:00

Free video chat by Ustream

I plan to live stream my talk later this morning at an event hosted by the Montana Arts Council. I'll be giving a workshop of arts organizations some ideas on how to use Internet tools to advance their missions.

Click here for a list of the links I'll be discussing.

Obama in Denver

2008-10-27T17:48:00.003-06:00

My wife and I were in the crowd of more than 100,000 that gathered to hear Barack Obama yesterday at Civic Center Park. I caught just a few glimpses of him, but it was still a rare treat to be there. I kept trying to embed the memory deep in my mind, so I'd be able to recall it when I'm an old man.

Click here for a pretty good four-part video of the entire speech.

Update: I just received an email from Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper with this video excerpt from the speech. On Sunday Obama noted that our beloved mayor is "another skinny guy with a funny name."

Waiting for Obama

2008-10-26T12:43:00.001-06:00

Civic Center Park, Denver

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Stay Tuned for These Montana Arts Podcasts

2008-10-04T14:51:00.006-06:00

Montana Arts Council Marketing Tune-up, originally uploaded by LenEdgerly.

The seven arts organizations at the Montana Arts Council's Marketing Tune-Up today created pilot podcasts. After an energetic pitch on behalf of podcasting, I had a chance to demonstrate the technical gremlins which often intervene. What happened was that after doing all seven podcasts, with the recording light on my Edirol R-09 working, levels showing, all normal--none of the .mp3 files appeared on my computer when I attempted to upload them to Libsyn. I re-recorded all of them, but somehow deleted the second take for the Missoula Cultural Council. The third take also wouldn't take, and neither Tom Bensen nor I had the heart to go for a fourth attempt. I will say that Tom did an excellent interview with Marilyn Bruya, and I hope they follow up by creating the "Cultural Moment" podcast which they did such a good job experimenting with.

Seven pilot podcasts survived the gremlins, as follows:

The Stevensville Playhouse Podcast by the Chantilly Theatre in Stevensville, (soon to change their name to the Stevensville Playhouse), featuring Ben Courteau and Harold Shinsato.

Red Truck Review by the Missoula Children's Theatre, featuring Don Collins, co-founder and senior development officer.

Chorus Clatter by the Missoula Community Chorus, featuring Kevin Johnson, treasurer.

"The Downbeat Down Low with Darko" podcast by the Missoula Symphony, featuring Music Director Darko Butorac. Darko also volunteered earlier in my presentation for this video clip.

The Montana Rep Podcast by the Montana Repertory Theatre, featuring Greg Johnson, artistic director.

Sunburst Arts Update by the Sunburst Foundation in Eureka, Montana, featuring Keri Goodwin.

Click here for a list of links I mentioned in my presentation to this very engaged and promising group of potential podcasters.

Missoula Morning

2008-10-04T06:12:00.002-06:00

Getting ready for today's presentation at the Montana Arts Council Marketing Tune-Up in Missoula. We have an engaged group of participants attending, about 35 in all, representing the Chantilly Players from Stevensville, the legendary Missoula Children's Theatre, the Missoula Community Chorus, Missoula Cultural Council, Missoula Symphony Association, Montana Repertory Theatre, and the Sunburst Foundation from Eureka.

My co-presenters are Jim Copenhaver and Dale Erquiaga, whom we are zooming in via the wonders of Skype video and a backup speaker phone, which we had to use briefly yesterday when the Skype audio went south. Plan B kept Dale's image on the screen while we listened to him on the speaker phone. I hope the Internet is kinder today, when I'll be hooking up with Robert John Cook from Cape Cod to give a brief testimony on how podcasting has opened up surprising new doors in his career as an artist and musician.

Stage Set for Obama

2008-09-16T07:32:00.001-06:00

He's due here in two hours at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado.

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More Utterzly Political Talks with Albert Maruggi

2008-09-06T00:14:00.005-06:00

Albert and I used Utterz to record two more episodes of our shared commentary on the Republican National Convention on September 1, 2008, and September 4, 2008. It was great fun to connect with him as the conventions played out in Denver and St. Paul. We'll have to check in with each other from time to time between now and the election!

Utterzly Political - 4

2008-09-01T15:12:00.003-06:00

Albert Maruggi rang me up today from my perch at Common Grounds coffee shop in Spearfish, SD. The circus has arrived in his hometown of St. Paul, MN, after pulling up stakes in Denver. The conversation continues...

John Dean and Some Democrats

2008-08-28T16:59:00.001-06:00

Invesco Field at Mile High, Denver.

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Utterzly Political - 3

2008-08-28T12:09:00.001-06:00

Albert and Len consider Bill Clinton's performance last night (we agree it was very strong), why Biden's speech was great even if it might not have been scored high by a speech teacher, and what's ahead for tonight at Invesco Field. My wife and I will be leaving soon with Dave Winer to make the trek to the stadium well in advance of the official start time for the program at 3 p.m.

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Utterzly Political - 2

2008-08-27T11:28:00.001-06:00

Albert Maruggi (R) and Len Edgerly (D) discuss last night's speech by Hillary Clinton, another reason Romney probably won't be McCain's VP pick, and an example of peaceful protest yesterday at the Pepsi Center.

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Utterzly Political - 1

2008-08-26T11:43:00.001-06:00

Albert Maruggi, a Republican who lives in the host city for the GOP convention, and I, a Democrat living in downtown Denver, today discuss Vice Presidential strategy and which party and city know how to party best. We plan to make this a series of Utterz conversations during the two conventions. Stay tuned!

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Joe Biden in our Neighborhood

2008-08-25T14:22:00.003-06:00

On the way back from lunch with my friend Michael Drummy, I received a TXT message from my wife alerting me to the news that Joe Biden was expected any minute at a hot dog shack less than a block from our home. I made it there by the 16th Street shuttle to end up close enough to shake hands with him and thank him for running. The handshake is at about 3:40 into the Qik video above.

I'm guessing a little crowd of 200 people had formed by the time Biden appeared. Several TV cameras were trained on him, along with a long boom mic. The rest of us held cell phones and cameras up high to record the moment. Our houseguest Dave Winer, who was with Darlene and first spotted the crowd forming, also got some a great photo and a video . Afterward we had lunch at P.F. Chang's and savored our brush with history here in beautiful mile-high Denver.

The mood downtown today is happy, casual, maybe even delighted. Official types in dark suits with Hall passes hanging from their necks move among us civilians, and the police presence, to my eyes, is appropriately pervasive but uniformly casual and far from provocative. Yellow-shirted volunteers offer help and directions at every corner. Today we say one serious motorcade rolling down 14th Street toward the Pepsi Center. Michelle? Jimmy Carter?

Outside my window now I see a steady stream of people walking up and down the 16th Street pedestrian mall. We have a great view from the 11th floor. Later this afternoon, after I unpack the new iMac I bought to process videos of convention week, I'll head over and try out the perimeter pass I received from a Twitter friend, Dan Patterson. It will get me into the area next to the Pepsi Center but not into the building itself. Stay tuned!

Birth of a Podcast: Six Lessons

2008-08-17T09:27:00.009-06:00

Twenty-eight days ago I uploaded the first episode of The Kindle Chronicles, my new Friday podcast all about the Kindle, available for free subscription at the iTunes Store. What a ride it's been already! The show just passed 1,000 downloads on Libsyn, and word of its existence is spreading quickly through the Kindlesphere via forums such as Amazon's customer discussions and MobileRead.

I have had the opportunity to interview fabulous fellow Kindle enthusiasts - Baratunde Thurston, C.C. Chapman, Stephen Windwalker, Bill Bulger, and (for next week's show) Joe Wikert. The podcast has put me in touch with many others through comments on forums and in feedback via email and on the show notes page. I suspected that the community of Kindle early adopters would be exciting to connect with as a podcaster, and I wasn't wrong. I love seeing such a wide variety of people sharing delight in this breakthrough technology--from 74-year-old South Boston political icon Bill Bulger to tech-savvy Parisan Hadrien Gardeur, co-founder of the essential FeedBooks resource for eReaders.

Here are six lessons about podcasting that The Kindle Chronicles have taught me so far:

1. Start podcasting before you think you're ready or have something to say.

I uploaded my first podcast on December 15, 2005 after getting introduced to the medium at Blogs N Dogs, a mind-bending conference in Banff that included a free dogsled ride as part of the registration. That episode, a breathless interview at Denver International Airport with Anthony Radich, executive director of the Western States Arts Federation, marked the birth of the Mile High Pod Chronicles. It developed into a journal-like mix of audio and video episodes in which I did interviews, profiles, and monologues about whatever interested me. On October, 2006, I separated the show into the Audio Pod Chronicles and Video Pod Chronicles, which have continued ever since. They appear each week on alternate Wednesdays. The iTunes subscription links are here for the audio and here for the video.

My Pod Chronicles podcasts have generated a gratifying following of family, friends, and quite a few people I don't know. I have learned how to record with an Edirol R-09, edit in GarageBand, shoot video with a Sanyo Xacti HD2 and edit in iMovie HD 6 and Final Cut Express. There is, in truth, LOTS to learn, much of it frustrating. Anyone who tells you it's easy to create a podcast is lying. But it's also completely accessible to anyone who is willing to learn and stick with it.

2. Don't do your podcast only when you feel like it.

The main obstacle to creating a successful podcast is the temptation to quit, or podfade as it's called in the community. Early on, I committed to a weekly rotation, and I've stuck to it pretty much no matter what. In this I have taken inspiration from the poet William Stafford's habit of writing a poem a day the last 20 years of his life. When students whined that they couldn't possibly do that, because they would not be able to write a good enough poem every day, Stafford's response was, "Lower your standards." It's a brilliant admonition, and it's helped me overcome podcaster's block many a week. Few of the episodes have approached anything like perfection, but they're always getting better.

3. Listen to lots of other podcasts.

Just as writers are urged to read constantly, podcasters should listen to how others are using this new medium. I currently have 58 podcast subscriptions in my iTunes directory. Obviously I can't keep up with all of them, but whenever I'm in the car, on the treadmill, or walking somewhere I have plenty of choices to listen to on my iPhone. Through much listening, I have developed my own taste, and you will, too. I prefer audio podcasts in the 18- to 30-minute range, with a regular format, simple intro and outro music with bumpers between segments, high-quality audio quality, and surprises.

4. When your true subject of your podcast arrives, pounce!

So I had been motoring along with my two Pod Chronicles podcasts for more than a year, minding my own business, when I happened to get swept up in ecstacy over the Kindle. I bought mine in December of last year and was immediately lit up to see my passions for literature and geekdom perfectly aligned in one revolutionary device. I read everything I could, and I watched the base of enthusiastic users grow. Last month in Maine the idea dawned on me of starting a podcast about the Kindle.

One inspiration was Libsyn's Rob Walch, a veteran podcaster whose Podcast 411 had been essential to me in getting started. When the iPhone came out, he launched his "Today in iPhone" podcast, which of course attracted a huge and passionate audience. His tag line for Podcast 411 has always been "listen different," so that naturally led to "phone different" for the iPhone podcast. When it came time for me to sign off at the end of my Kindle podcast, I found myself saying "read different," in homage to Rob, and it seems to fit.

Preparing my Kindle news, tech tips, quote, and the "What's on Your Kindle Interview?" takes a lot of work, and if I had been trying to figure out the difference between the .mp3 and .WAV settings on my Edirol recorder at the same time, I would not have been able to launch the podcast in a credible way. I enjoy the sense that all my banging away at the mechanics and gear these past two years was preparation for The Kindle Chronicles; I just didn't know it at the time.

When the podcaster is ready, the show will appear.

5. Respond quickly and genuinely to all feedback.

I've learned from pros like Joseph Jaffe, Mitch Joel, C.C. Chapman, Chris Brogan, and Scott Monty how great it is to hear back from a podcaster to whom I've sent a comment or email. The ease of conversation with listeners is a unique advantage of podcasting. I admit to feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the new correspondents who have generously commented and weighed in on The Kindle Chronicles; I have a difficult time remembering the particulars, but I respond to everyone, maybe sometimes twice by mistake. These conversations are shaping the content and form of the show. I am now in the middle of a dialog concerning show length, with a couple of listeners recommending an hour's duration and another, Heather Hollick, making a persuasive case for 30 minutes or less. Heather in an email today wrote, in part:

The ideal podcast to me is between 20 - 25 minutes. Once a podcast ventures past 30 minutes it has to be very good to remain on the playlist. The best podcasts are well produced, to the point, and packed with great information. You have the framework for such a podcast. I love the structure with news, tips, interview, reading, feedback, etc. I would encourage you, however, not to fall into the trap of letting each podcast meander as you lazily wander through each of these topics each week. Attention spans are limited. My experience with dozens of podcasts a week and thousands of hours of listening over the last 3 years is that podcasters get lazy. They realize that they do not have the time constraints of traditional radio and therefore allow themselves unlimited time. But traditional radio has honed the ability to condense quality content into a small amount of time. Aim for quality, not quantity.

That's priceless information for me as I shape the new podcast in coming episodes. I tend to agree with Heather, based on my own listening habits. I will certainly take to heart her admonition to avoid laziness!

6. Serve your listeners.

I hope I'm doing that, because that's what my favorite podcasts do. Internet Ninja Christopher S. Penn likes to say, "The first rule of podcasting is 'Don't talk about the podcast.'" I'll admit that I enjoy checking the Libsyn stats and seeing references to The Kindle Chronicles pop up around the Internet. But it's even more fun to figure out ways to be helpful, to really add something to the community. With that goal guiding me, I can dare anything. I've written Whoopi Goldberg's publicist to see if she will come on the show, because I know she's a big Kindle fan. If you know Whoopi, please let her know she'd be a welcome guest. I think she's coming to Denver for the Democratic Convention, so we could even do it in person!

Those are six lessons (homage to Mitch Joel) that I've learned about podcasting, thanks to The Kindle Chronicles. It's been helpful to ponder this, because on August 19th I am scheduled to make a brief presentation on the topic to the Denver Area Podcasters Meetup. UPDATE: Click here for audio of my talk to the Podcasters.

Please add a comment if you can think of something I've missed or gotten wrong, or an idea for how the podcast can better serve listeners, and I'll add it for my talk.

Twitterers Come to the Aid of My Mother

2008-08-02T12:54:00.003-06:00

Hmm. My Twitter friends didn't think much of my question about how much to charge my mother to buy my old iPhone. I also got some good offline advice, coaching me to at the LEAST give her a generous discount. I did't have a chance to explain in 140 characters that Mom specifically requested me to find out what used ones are going for, but still. I may not have a concience, but thank God I have Twitter to keep me honest. The woman who gave me birth is about to get a free phone...

A Podcast is Born

2008-07-28T21:04:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I created and uploaded Episode 1 of a new podcast, The Kindle Chronicles. I'm very excited about the project, because the Kindle has changed the way I read, and I know that I'm not alone. The weekly podcast, scheduled for release each Friday by noon, will comprise Kindle News, a Tech Tip, the "What's on Your Kindle?" interview, and a Kindle Quote. Baratunde Thurston hit a homer as the first interview subject for the podcast. I listened to our conversation in the car this morning and was really struck with the power of Baratunde's ideas about how social media could combine with the Kindle for shared reading experiences. Jeff Bezos, are you listening?

Please join the conversation by subscribing (the iTunes directory listing is under review) and commenting on the podcast. If you are a Kindle reader and are interested in being interviewed, please let me know. If you are Jeff Bezos's scheduler, don't delay--there are still some good openings available!

Claire v. Bessie

2008-07-25T11:20:00.001-06:00

Our Yorkie Claire has enjoyed playing with the Bessie which Sim gave me at PodCamp Boston. Thanks, Sim!

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PodCamp Boston 3 Do List

2008-07-21T04:34:00.004-06:00

Christopher S. Penn and Chris Brogan exhorted us PodCampers to focus on action, to get beyond talk about social media to, basically, changing the world. They inspired me as I woke up this morning to gather my own personal action items before they drift back into the haze of pleasant memory. To wit:

1. Improve this web site using ideas Chris Penn shared in yesterday's "Extreme Makeover" session. He showed us a very cool web site grader which gives my site a 60-out-of-100 score. One problem is that I am redirecting the Blogger URL to the domain name I purchased at GoDaddy, which screws up the meta tags. That sentence alone indicates that fixing my web site will involve arcane under-the-hood tools and facts, the scary and essential Ninja powers of which Chris is a master.

2. Press ahead with my still photography. I was motivated and energized by the Flickr feedback I received on the above photo, of Phil Campbell interviewing Chris Brogan, and other shots I took during the two days. I have loved photography since I learned how to develop black and white photos in pungent chemical baths at The Harvard Crimson, the college's daily newspaper. I recently bought a "real" camera, a Nikon D40, in preparation for a Chris Marquardt's "Tips from the Top Floor" landscape photography workshop in Fort Collins August 21-24th.

3. Figure out what the dream "Mystery Rig" was that I saw a woman shooting on Saturday. I didn't want to interrupt her filming, so I got close enough to see it was some kind of Sanyo Xacti camera with an external mic and a hand mount. This could be the next generation of my Video Pod Chronicles gear.

4. Stay in touch with David Beaudoin, Stephanie Davis, Suki Fuller, Lisa Czejdo, Sarah Vela, Michael Gaines, Daniel Patterson, Christina Hills, and other new friends I met in the high-ceilinged hallways of the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School.

5. Check out the podcasts I heard about during interviews that will make up Wednesday's episode of the Audio Pod Chronicles, especially Dan Patterson's Quixotic friend in Spearfish, South Dakota, whose name escapes now but I have it on the Edirol R-09.

That's it for now. I'm late for a meeting and then we will be returning to Ocean Park, Maine, where I hope to meet the elusive Amy Greenlaw, who was also at PodCamp but we kept missing each other. The adventure continues. I am VERY grateful to the Incredible Chris Duo for all the work that went into this event. They personify a generoisity of spirit and energy that I hope to live up to in the coming weeks and months.

Joyce Bettencourt Utterz to Christina Hills

2008-07-20T09:38:00.001-06:00

Pcb4

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Joyce Bettencourt Utterz at Podcamp

2008-07-20T09:34:00.001-06:00

We're giving a demo of Utterz to Christina Hills at pcb3

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Beach Reader

2008-07-16T11:56:00.002-06:00

Beach Reader, originally uploaded by LenEdgerly.

It's a bright, sunny day here at Ocean Park, Maine. After lunch, I took a break from my podcast prep and decided to try out the Kindle at the beach. I took a folding chair and had to run quickly over the hot sand in my bare feet. Once set up, I was delighted at how easy on the eyes the e-ink screen was. Just like reading a newspaper or a book.

I'm deep into Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns, so I read wonderful tales of Lincoln's presidency for about 10 minutes until I felt my legs getting burned, then retreated to the cottage. Now I'm looking out the window, dreaming of my next Kindle-on-the-Beach break...

Inside the Apple on 3G Day

2008-07-12T02:49:00.000-06:00

An Apple Store on 3G Day from Len Edgerly on Vimeo.

This was the scene inside the Cambridgeside Apple store on July 11, 2008 as I began the process of buying an iPhone 3G. What I thought would take 15 minutes turned into a two-hour ordeal in which I got caught in the great iTunes Store server meltdown and left with my phone unactivated. Activation was accomplished at home at about 3 p.m., and all's well. I love the phone, and the Apple staff were great, even the guy who politely asked me to stop filming with my Flip camera.

Waiting for 3G

2008-07-11T03:12:00.001-06:00

I arrived at the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall in Cambridge, Mass., at 3 am to become the third person in line at the Apple store. Two hours later and it's still just we three. Looks like I'm likely to get a white 16G iPhone 3G.

Mobile post sent by LenEdgerly using Utterz. Replies. mp3

Train Geek

2008-07-05T12:37:00.001-06:00

Train Geek, originally uploaded by LenEdgerly.

I love trains, and the two-hour Downeaster from Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to Boston's North Station is one of my favorites. The OOB stop is seasonal, available only in the summer, when I can walk to it from the cottage or get a lift for the five-minute drive if I've got luggage. I treat myself to Business Class, not much more than Coach on this trip, but more room and a free non-alcoholic beverage. I had a hot dog and a cup of Legal Seafood's clam chowdah for lunch, downloaded a guilty-pleasure beach read to the Kindle, The Beach House by Jane Green (excellent so far), and now am happily ensconced at a table in the cafe car, surfing a strong 3G signal from AT&T wireless, enjoying the photo that the cafe hostess took on my iPhone. Ah, life!

Father-Son Kindle Fest

2008-07-05T07:28:00.001-06:00

My Dad, 81, a new Kindle reader, joins me in reading today's newspapers while we wait for my mother during her appointment medical at Southern Maine Medical Center.

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A Book Worthy of a Vice President

2008-06-28T07:14:00.004-06:00

I just finished A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America by Virginia's U.S. Senator, Jim Webb. It's an eloquent extended essay on America that helped me understand why Webb leads the current Intrade prediction market's pick for Obama's running mate. Webb, like Obama, is an accomplished writer, the author of several novels, including Fields of Fire, which Tom Wolfe described as "the finest of the Vietnam novels."

What struck me in particular about Webb's latest book is what he calls his "passion for history and a desire to learn from it." He tells what he means by history in this passage:

Not the enumeration of monarchs and treaties that so often passes for academic knowledge, but the surging vitality from below that so often impels change and truly defines cultures. The novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote vividly about war and peace, showing us the drawing rooms and idiosyncrasies of Russia's elite. But in reality, he was telling us that great societal changes are most often pushed along by tsunami-deep impulses that cause the elites to react far more than they inspire them to lead. And this, in my view, is the greatest lesson of political history. Entrenched aristocracies, however we may want to define them, do not want change; their desire instead is to manage dissent in a way that does not disrupt their control. But over time, under the right system of government, a free, thinking people has the energy and ultimately the power to effect change. (locations 127-136, Kindle edition)

If those words bring to mind Obama's mantra of change, so will lots of the rest of the book, especially Webb's early opposition to the war in Iraq. In September, 2002, six months before the invasion, he wrote a piece for The Washington Post titled "Heading for Trouble: Do We Really Want to Occupy Iraq for the Next Thirty Years?" Typically, his argument was cast at a high level of national strategy, informed by his long study of military history. Here is a sample:

Nations such as China can only view the prospect of an American military consumed for the next generation by the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall. Indeed, if one gives the Chinese credit for having a long-term strategy--and those who love to quote Sun Tzu might consider his nationality--it lends credence to their insistent cultivation of the Muslim world. One should not take lightly the fact that China previously supported Libya, that Pakistan developed its nuclear capability with China's unrelenting assistance and that the Chinese sponsored a coup attempt in Indonesia in 1965. An "American war" with the Muslims, occupying the very seat of their civilization, would allow the Chinese to isolate the United States diplomatically as they furthered their own ambitions in South and Southeast Asia.

There is lots to admire in this book and lots to provoke reassessment of conventional wisdom, even one's own. Webb's moving description of what it felt like to serve in the military during the Vietnam War, when soldiers were attacked as "baby killers," led me to reevaluate my own beliefs from that era, when I joined more than half a million protesters in the Moratorium to End the War march on Washington in November, 1969. To consider changing one's views about Vietnam is just as difficult now as it was then. Let's just say Webb's account of the Vietnam War and the wound it continues to represent for the Democratic Party struck me as original and smart.

The talking-heads analysis of Jim Webb as a Vice Presidential candidate usually comes round to his 1979 article titled "Women Can't Fight" in Washingtonian Magazine. Twenty-seven years later, Webb was grilled about it by Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." Webb told Russert, "I am fully comfortable with the roles of women in the military today" and noted that his authorship of the article "was vetted twice in Senate confirmation hearings in 1984 and 1987." In my opinion, his answers to Russert were effective, but a Twitter friend after watching the Russert interview Twittered, "wow. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt to see if he has grown, realized he was wrong - but dang! he can't say he's wrong." I bet he's closer to saying he was wrong now than he was two years ago.

I hope Webb's responses to the article enable him to stay in contention as Veep, because it seems as if his strategic skills and experience would be valuable on the ticket. He and Obama sound similar themes on domestic policy, foreign affairs, and the need to overcome a broken political system in the U.S. To have these beliefs and values championed by individuals of such wildly divergent personal backgrounds and temperament--Webb is hot and rugged to Obama's cool and graceful--would make for a strong ticket and a strong Administration, in my opinion.

I recommend this book highly to anyone who's as steeped in the Presidential election as I am, and I'd love to hear others' views on it.

Freedom of the Press Redefined

2008-06-26T14:53:00.005-06:00

"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one," H. L. Mencken famously said. That truism has taken another giant step backwards into history, with Amazon's Digital Text Platform.

With DTP, you can self-publish at the Kindle Store at no charge. You set the price for your work as you wish, but it has to be at least a buck.

The process couldn't be easier, as I found out late last night when I uploaded my Wazee Journal essay, "Cold Turkey in Paradise: Twelve Days Off the Internet at Maho Bay." Publication was not quite instantaneous, but just now, about 13 hours later, I was delighted to find my essay simply by searching on "Len Edgerly" on the Amazon home page. I was surprised to discover they had discounted it to 80 cents - a major literary bargain, I might add - and that you can send a sample onto your Kindle for free. I did that, and then from my Kindle, I bought the full essay from myself for 80 cents. Within seconds, the essay was at the top of my Kindle home screen. Proceeds from this sale and any others that may occur will be transferred to my checking account.

Now I'm thinking about those two poetry manuscripts that have been kicking around my work studio, on the shuttle back and forth from poetry manuscript contests. Why not?

Jeff Bezos is doing all the right things to press this revolution in reading to the max. If you have something to publish, try out Digital Text Platform for the Kindle, and let me know so I can take a look at it!

I Have Seen the Future of Internet Video

2008-06-24T17:35:00.006-06:00

At today's Social Media Breakfast 8 hosted by Bryan Person and Bob Collins, one of the great presentations was by Rob Lane, cofounder and CEO of Overlay.tv .

Rob's demonstration reminded me of a talk I heard by Alex Lindsay of Pixel Corps five months ago at MacWorld Expo. Lindsay wowed me at a podcast workshop with examples of videos with links directly to places where you could buy stuff. He said the MacBreak video podcast once experimented with a link to a vendor selling microphones. "So THAT's why we sold 400 instead of 15!" the vendor said when the link was explained to him. I believed it when Lindsay predicted that video links would one day enable podcasters to compete with broadcast television, which has never been able to achieve what he called "the holy grail of TV," because it's never been possible for a viewer to use that remote control to actually buy something. I thought Lindsay's video links were very cool, but it looked to me as if creating them myself was going to be a technical challenge best postponed for later.

What blew me away this afternoon was how easy it was for me to put links into one of my YouTube videos using the free service at Overlay.tv . I had a ball trying the interface out, and it gave me an intimate feel for the potential of video links. They turn the experience of watching an Internet video into something a lot more active. For me as a video creator, it reminded me of the first time I tried creating a link to a word of text in Blogger. All of a sudden, my text creation had a third dimension. Now the same is true for video.

I naturally imagine the uses this could have for artists and arts organizations. I've been spreading the gospel of using new media, especially video, to connect with stakeholders, and now this ability to have videos include overlays makes the case even more compelling.

I'm aware that there are other tools to add links to videos, and that Overlay.tv has not invented the category here. But they were the first one that looked easy enough for me to try, so I'm grateful for what they're doing. Rob says they are a startup of about 12 people, growing fast.

This is the video as I uploaded it to YouTube, without the overlays. The video at the top of this post is the one with overlays.

I got so excited trying out Overlay.tv that I've spent all afternoon and evening playing with it, when I had planned to be working on tomorrow's episode of the Audio Pod Chronicles, which will include a brief audio interview I did with Rob Lane after his presentation today.

UPDATE: Rob Lane emailed me this link to Sawyer Watson's skateboard video. He said he can't yet send me the Smirnoff link as it's built on their next release due out over the next three to four weeks as they come out of beta.

What the Obama Ticket Might Look Like

2008-06-21T13:56:00.003-06:00

Someone named Jay Wyatt emailed this graphic to me, saying "Feel free to use this as you like." I must say that the further I get into Web's latest book, A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America, the more I can picture this ticket. Webb's deep experience and strategic approach to national security is impressively rendered in the book. He comes across as pretty tightly wrapped in the videos I've seen, but this piece makes a convincing case that his anger management problem is a myth. We'll see...

A New Joy Discovered on the Kindle

2008-06-21T04:56:00.004-06:00

Last night I noticed something about the way I read books on the Kindle. Because I can so easily switch among books, it's as if I am reading a composite book, a mashup of three books at once. This creates all kinds of possibilities in the way I encounter the content of the books. I'll try to explain by following the pathways my mind took last night, curled up in my leather chair with the Kindle.

By happenstance, the three books on the device are Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America by Jim Webb, and The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. I did not choose them because they had any relation to each other, except that they each interested me at the moment I decided to buy them via the magical whispernet built-in wireless connection to the Kindle Store.

But as it happens, there are points of overlap among the books. Andrew Carnegie had a brief role in Lincoln's war administration, transporting Union troops by rail. Jim Webb, a potential Obama vice president, writes about military strategy in Vietnam, where he served and was wounded as a Marine. Carnegie and Webb seem to share personality traits around optimism and can-do attitude. Webb's discussion of the political choices made in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq echo the complex drama of parties, personalities and positions leading to the Civil War. All three books feature prominent Americans playing roles in American history.

My pattern for reading "real" books has always been to have a few on the table by my chair, and to switch among them. My mind seems to enjoy changing the channel every 15 minutes or so. Whether I am conscious of it or not, my thinking goes to making connections among the books, making the entire reading session more creative and enjoyable.

What's new with the Kindle relates to the fact that all three books appear on exactly the same screen, in exactly the same font. So when I return to the Home screen after reading, say, Team of Rivals, then select A Time to Fight, it's as if I've simply changed chapters in one big, sweeping epic. The Virginia U.S. Senator trying to warn of the folly of a decades-long occupation of Iraq becomes another character in a long story, which also includes Abraham Lincoln's skillful restraint during the Republican nomination contest in 1860.

What I love about this insight last night is that it demonstrates how the Kindle is changing the way I read. In this case, it's not a huge change, because I have switched among books before. But the technology makes the process seamless and makes it easier and more natural for me to read this way. It's of course particularly true when I travel. I would not take all three of these books with me on a flight to Denver, but with the Kindle they all come everywhere I take it.

A related feature of the Kindle is that it makes choosing my next book so easy. This means that I often find reference to a new book in the current one, and instead of having to make a note to remember to order it or look for it the next time I'm at the Harvard Coop, I can simply go to the Kindle Store without leaving my leather chair and have the book added to the Home page in less than a minute. This is so much fun that it takes restraint to avoid building up the supply of books on my Kindle to unmanageable and costly excess.

Literature has always enabled me to bring people, ideas, and events from any time in history into my current thought and attention. What I realized last night is that the Kindle makes that basic joy of reading a little bit sweeter.

Obama to Staff: "You've Inspired Me"

2008-06-08T05:23:00.003-06:00

I always believed that the way Barack Obama ran his campaign would be his best demonstration of leadership ability, offsetting the fact that his resume otherwise does not contain any governerships, CEO positions, or military command. By now, the results are in. Starting from zero, he assembled a team that toppled the most effective political machine in recent history. They kept going when things were down, and they stayed grounded when things were up. They understood the rules of the nominating game better than the Clinton team did, which led to running up the crucial delegate lead in states like Idaho, for goodness sakes.

What I like about this video is that it provides a peek at the relationship which Obama created with his campaign staff. I've heard a lot of corporate leaders speak to employees, to exhort and encourage them, to give them clear and motivating goals. I have never heard it done as well as Obama does in this brief talk at the Chicago campaign headquarters.

I can only imagine what it felt like to be sitting on the floor of that room, listening to these words--the exhaustion level, the euphoria, the anxiety and hope regarding the next five months, and throughout it all, the sense of actually writing a page in history.

Two N.Y. Senators Who Didn't Know What Hit Them

2008-06-07T04:45:00.007-06:00

Hillary Rodham Clinton and William H. Seward--two U.S. Senators, two nominations that incredibly went to rivals not long removed from the Illinois state legislature. On the day Hillary is scheduled to concede to Barack Obama at noon, I am struck by this passage from Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin:

Several blocks away, Seward had finished reading the morning newspapers and was getting ready to go to the Capitol when a chorus of voices outside attracted his attention. Hundreds of devoted followers were assembled in front of his house. Moved by the spirit of the serenade, Seward spoke to them with emotion. "I have been a representative of my native state in the Senate for twelve years, and there is no living being who can look in my face and say that in all that time I have not done my duty toward all--the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the bond and the free."

Perhaps this show of popular support softened the wrenching realization that his chance had come and gone. When a congressmen argued with him that a certain politician would be disappointed if he didn't get an appointment in the new administration, Seward lost his composure: "Disappointment! You speak to me of disappointment. To me, who was justly entitled to the Republican nomination for the presidency, and who had to stand aside and see it given to a little Illinois lawyer!" (Locations 6701-5 in Kindle edition)

Well, neither Lincoln nor Obama fit the "little" part of that description. And, according to Kearns and the journalist Todd Purdhum, neither was/is as innocent of ambition and political calculation as many believe. Purdhum's masterful Vanity Fair profile of Obama argued that what makes Barack a contender is "his mother's daring, his grandmother's grit, and his own relentless drive."

Kearns says of Lincoln in her Introduction:

When viewed against the failed efforts of his rivals, it is clear that Lincoln won the nomination because he was shrewdest and canniest of them all. More accustomed to relying upon himself to shape events, he took the greatest control of the process leading up to the nomination, displaying a fierce ambtion, an exceptional political acumen, and a wide range of emotional strengths, forged in the crucible of personal hardship, that took his unsuspecting rivals by surprise." (Locations 131-36 in Kindle edition)

I happened upon these passages in the Kearns book while thumbing through it the other day at the Harvard Coop. I took a course on the Presidency from her when she was a young star professor at Harvard, and I always love seeing her sad, wise face on the TV screen in her current incarnation as author/pundit. I am looking forward to reading the full book, which Obama has mentioned in talking about his Administration. I will not be surprised to see him assemble his own team of rivals at a perilous point in U.S. history, if he is given the chance.

Breakfast of Activists

2008-06-05T13:29:00.004-06:00

This morning in Boston I attended a breakfast conversation titled "The New Paradigm of Social Movements" at the offices of The Philanthropic Initiative, facilitated by TPI founder Peter Karoff, author of The World We Want. It was a high-energy, thoughtful discussion of the elements that are required to create successful social movements adequate to take on global challenges such as climate change.

I set up a live stream using UStream, but instead of getting one single video archive, I have lots of them, because the Internet connection kept cutting out. Here are the pieces of a fascinating, deep consideration of our shared future:

TPI Breakfast 1
TPI Breakfast 2
TPI Breakfast 3
TPI Breakfast 4
TPI Breakfast 5
TPI Breakfast 6
TPI Breakfast 7
TPI Breakfast 8
TPI Breakfast 9
TPI Breakfast 10

After Hours at the Libertarian Convention

2008-05-25T20:20:00.006-06:00

I took the 16th Street Mall shuttle this evening to the Sheraton Denver Hotel (formerly the Adams Mark) to check in with the National Libertarian Convention. The big hall was empty except for a guy working at his laptop on the front stage. He turned out to be the National Secretary, Bob Sullentrup, who was kind enough to pause in his toil of writing the minutes to speak with me about the day's events. Bob Barr was nominated for president on the sixth ballot this afternoon, finally besting Mary Ruwart, who was nominated vice president.

On the way out of the hotel I spoke with two delegates and a party member. My Twitter friend Rick Wolff, a Libertarian delegate from New York in 1992, was following along via the live Qik feed, providing a running chat commentary that I could see on the screen of the Nokia N95.

As an early and strong supporter of Barack Obama, I am pretty far from the Libertarian outlook. But I admired the clarity and passion of the Libertarians I spoke with tonight. It's refreshing to step away from the Clinton-Obama horse race into a world where ideas matter more than winning.

I plan to return to the Convention tomorrow morning for some audio interviews for Wednesday's Audio Pod Chronicles.

Don't Miss "The Last Five Years"

2008-05-24T21:51:00.004-06:00

Playing through June 29th at the Garner Galleria Theatre in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, this two-person musical carried me away to a good place this evening.

I attended it alone, because Darlene is hosting a quilting class at the apartment--a frenzy of fabric and thread, a whirlwind of four women totally focused on quilts with the man of the house in elegant exile at the Curtis Hotel for two nights.

The musical is about a man and woman who fall in love, drift apart and after five years finally split up. What's unique is the way the story is told. At the start, the woman, played tonight by Johanna Brickley, is singing songs from the end of the relationship, and the man, Thom Miller, is at the beginning, five years earlier. As the stage time proceeds, she goes back in time, and he goes forward. This creates all sorts of artful tension and irony, but the real payoff is the point at which they sing together in the same 10 minutes of time before continuing their solo trajectories to past and future.

The score was quirky and unpredictable, and the actors were strong in voice and presence. They made me feel intimately how lucky I am to be in a marriage that works. But it also made me know how often she and I do not reside in the same moment, because of various external ambitions and worries that pull us into our own worlds. I left the theatre determined to find and savor more of our 10 minutes together.

So if you're in Denver, don't miss this show! And bring someone you love.

NOTE: The Denver Post reviewer got lost in the couple's career plot and missed the emotional authenticity, which really worked in my opinion. The guy could have been a lawyer as well as a writer, and she could have been an environmental engineer instead of an aspiring actress--it wouldn't have changed the deeper human rhythms of the show. I did admire the critic's coining of a word to describe the show, though. He called it a "divorcical."

First Lit Reading on a Kindle?

2008-05-24T00:06:00.003-06:00

This evening at Cafe Babu in Boulder I read the opening portion of an essay published today in Wazee Journal, a Denver e-zine. Instead of printing out the pages, I loaded the text onto my Kindle and read from the device. A first in literature? Well, maybe. In any event, it was a fine gathering of Wazee authors and writers published by Green Fuse Community Press.

My essay is titled "Cold Turkey in Paradise: 12 Days Off the Internet at Maho Bay." Thanks to Jessica Slater, nonfiction editor of Wazee, for accepting it for publication. It was good to see her again at the reading.

I filmed the first part of the evening with my Nokia N95, but it ran out of battery after about 45 minutes. That recording is available at Qik.com .

Mile High Podcaster Peeps

2008-05-20T21:31:00.004-06:00

I attended this evening's Denver Area Podcasters Meetup at La Loma restaurant and was impressed at the size of the crowd--more than 20 by my count. We heard the latest from Goldie Katsu on the Thin Air Summit, and I made a pitch for the upcoming Denver Media Makers meeting Sunday May 25th at 10 a.m. at Panera Bread, 1313 Grant St., Denver. I was also pleased to meet the multi-talented technologist Ron Lewis for the first time, having followed him for a long time on Twitter.

Podcasting for the Arts in Montana

2008-05-17T07:05:00.007-06:00

UPDATE: The embedded frame now contains archive of my presentation.

UPDATE 2: My presentation begins at about 10 minutes into the recording, so you might want to move the slider bar ahead that far to skip past the setup.

If all goes well, the above window will show the live feed of my presentation today in Great Falls Montana at the Montana Arts Council's "Marketing Tune-Up" workshop. I am scheduled to begin my "Technology as a Strategic Tool" presentation at 10:15 am Mountain Time (12:15 p.m. Boston time). I will spend most of my time urging the nine arts organizations at the workshop to consider podcasting as a way to reach new audiences. We will create a composite audio podcast featuring 2-minute snippets from each one and upload it during the second hour of my presentation.

Here are places I'll take my audience on the Internet:

Kodak "Winds of Change" video

Utterz

Flickr

ComScore stats on growth in online video viewing

A 3-year-old reviews Star Wars - video

Bill O'Reilly's meltdown - video

Viral Video Chart

Tacoma Art Museum on Twitter

Yesterday's streaming went pretty well and you can click here for Jim Copenhaver's talk on audience development. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the record feature to work during Dale Erquiaga's excellent presentation on branding, but he had some viewers during the live stream and some action in the chat room. UPDATE: Click here for the second part of Dale's talk, given today (May 17)>

UPDATE: Here is the link for the audio podcast the group made during my workshop session, quick voices from the following Montana arts organizations: CM Russell Museum, Montana PBS, Fort Peck Fine Arts Council, Butte Center for Performing Arts, Paris Gibson Square museum, Southwest Montana Arts Council, Great Falls Symphony, Premiere Dance Company, and Great Falls Arts Association.

Where There's Smoke There's Podcasting

2008-05-14T03:25:00.005-06:00

Last night's visit to Cape Cod to give a talk on podcasting began with some drama.

As Beth Dunn and I made final adjustments to the equipment at the the office and meeting room where she is Director of Communications, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, she spotted smoke coming from an electrical outlet and surge protector. It smelled really bad, and it made us wonder if there was something burning somewhere we couldn't see. Beth called the Hyannis Fire Department, which responded forthwith. And so 15 minutes before my audience of 40 people was due to arrive, the room was filled with full-suited firemen carrying axes and cool digital monitors. Beth, whose network in the real world rivals her extensive connections online, quickly found another venue at Cape Cod Community College. I unhooked my Mac and the projector and stuffed all the tech gear in the suitcase for a quick change of plans.

My talk thus got off to a late start, but by the end of it I'd forgotten about the smoking surge protector because of the high engagement level of the folks who followed us over to the college. It was an audience made up entirely of artists exploring ways to support their art with new media tools. Most had heard the term "podcast" but had little idea what it meant. They asked great questions that helped me understand the subject better, which is always a payoff of giving these sorts of presentations.

I recorded the session with my Edirol R-09. The volume was all over the place, because I left the Edirol on a table and moved around a lot. Twitter friends Simon Young of New Zealand, Duane the ThePreppyDude, Darren Barefoot of Victoria, B.C., and Steve Rhodes of San Francisco offered helpful advice on how to improve the file minutes after I posted a plea for aid on Twitter. In the end, the Conversation Network's free and excellent Levelator improved the audio to within listenable quality. The talk lasts an hour and 20 minutes.

Several people came up after my talk to say they planned to experiment with podcasting. I can't wait to receive my first email with a link to a new show that got its start on Cape Cod. When Beth and I returned to the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, we were relieved to see the building stills standing.

My Podcast Subscriptions

2008-05-12T15:40:00.002-06:00

In preparation for tomorrow's presentation on podcasting at the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, I have been reviewing my current list of podcasts, as shown in my iTunes directory. This list changes all the time, as some podcast fall out of favor and I audition new ones. I try to keep it at about one screen full of names; otherwise I'd just keep adding new ones. A guy I know at Apple today emailed me that the latest published count of podcasts in the iTunes directory is 130,000. My favorites, of course, near the top and bottom of the list above, are my own offerings, the Audio Pod Chronicles and the Video Pod Chronicles, which appear on alternating Wednesdays.

Utterz as the rx for Preparation Block

2008-05-10T12:38:00.003-06:00

I'm preparing for a presentation on podcasting Tuesday on Cape Cod and used Utterz as a way of thinking out loud. Which was great, because Beth Dunn, who's hosting the presentation in her capacity as Director of Communication for the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, found the video on Utterz and left an audio comment letting me know she thinks I'm on the right track. This is a great way to prepare for a presentation, and playing around with Utterz helped me muscle through preparation-block. I'm really excited about the Cape Cod event. My session is maxed out at about 40 participants and is part of the Foundation's 2008 Speaker Series titled "Tell Your Story: Personal Branding, PR, and New Media for the Artist."

Colorado Press Women Notes

2008-04-12T08:17:00.005-06:00

I'm packing up my tech gear for a presentation this morning at the Colorado Press Women's spring event in Golden, Colorado. My topic will be "A Non-Technical Tour of Today's Internet." I plan to make a video on the spot and post it to Blip.tv. Other stops will be the iTunes Store, Flickr, Google Reader and Alerts, Seesmic (if there's time) and maybe Second Life, though my wife's admonition was "Forget it," on that one. "Isn't one life enough?"

I've tagged the places we'll go on the tour here.

UPDATE: Here is a recording of my presentation this morning before the Colorado Press Women. I turned the Edirol R-09 on in the middle of Ann Lockhart's introduction and left it on till the end. It was a great audience, and the women treated me to a fine lunch afterward. To show how easy it is to put video content on the Internet, I created this clip with the help of Anne Subart, a member of the Press Women.

Preceding me on the program was Chris Lopez, communications director for the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August. He pointed out that the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee has a podcast section of its web site. He also announced that one blogger per state has been chosen to sit with their delegations during the convention, along with six at-large bloggers. They were notified last week, but the list is not available on the web yet.

Hooked on Keith Burtis

2008-04-03T20:41:00.004-06:00

My Twitter friend Keith Burtis, a woodturning artist from the Buffalo, New York, area, spent some quality time with my Audio Pod Chronicles podcasts and today posted a glowing blog post about them. Much appreciated!

By a circuitous route, Keith found me some time ago, asking for ideas on how to use the Internet to promote his art, and we've been in touch from time to time. I've seldom seen someone take to these social network waters as enthusiastically as Keith has. Much of his forward motion and growing network comes from his generosity, which I certainly felt today. Good on ya, friend!

The angling scene is from Keith's Flickr site, which also has fine photos of his woodworking creations.

What's on My Kindle This Morning

2008-03-30T11:06:00.006-06:00

The Philadelphia Inquirer - Where I learned that the last full-blooded Eyak and fluent speaker of her native language, Marie Smith Jones, died Monday at her home in Anchorage, Alaska. I mainly purchased today's Sunday edition for 75 cents hoping I'd find good local coverage of the Pennsylvania primary. I wasn't disappointed. Staff Writer Thomas Fitzgerald wrote a solid piece based on his interviews with voters in New Castle, showing how tough Obama's job will be to make inroads in Hillary's blue-collar support.

NOTE: In tracking down links to the Inquirer piece here on my laptop, I took the time to play the video which accompanies Fitzgerald's written article. I couldn't do that with the Kindle, which displays an occasional muddy black-and-white photo but no video or color. Written quotes are one thing, but to see and hear the people Fitzgerald interviewed more than doubled the information about the topic. Still, it's a lot more Sunday-morning-ish to arrange myself in a stuffed chair in the living room with the Kindle than it is to sit here at my desk in work mode. When Apple makes a Kindle-killer, it will probably have color and video and unimaginably cool design. For now, I love my Kindle the more I use it.

The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie - I came across a reference to this book last night when I was finishing The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing by Paul B. Farrell, a terrific overview of how passive investors can use index funds to outperform professional stock pickers and active investors. Farrell's book cost $8.96 to download to my Kindle, and the Carnegie autobiography cost 99 cents. I could have saved the 99 cents by downloading it from Project Gutenberg to my computer, transcoding it and transferring it to the Kindle. But at 2 a.m. in my leather chair, I was willing to spend the money for a one-click purchase that arrived on the Kindle in a few seconds. Andrew Carnegie would not have approved! The linebreaks on the Kindle version are funky, but it's still easy to read and full of gems, like this passage, which I can find easily because I highlighted it on the Kindle:

I think my optimistic nature, my ability to shed trouble and to laugh through life, making "all my ducks swans," as friends say I do, must have been inherited from this delightful old masquerading grandfather whose name I am proud to bear. A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated; that the mind like the body can be moved from the shade into sunshine. Let us move it then. Laugh trouble away if possible, and one usually can if he be anything of a philosopher, provided that self-reproach comes not from his own wrongdoing. That always remains. There is no washing out of these "damned spots." The judge within sit sin the supreme court and can never be cheated. Hence the grand rule of life which Burns gives: "Thine own reproach alone do fear."

The New York Times - I clicked through all the stories and found the main Obama news, including pieces by Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich that seemed brilliant to me, because they mainly supported my candidate. That was fun, but I wondered if I'd missed anything, so I pressed the "Search" key on the Kindle keyboard and typed in "Obama." The result brought me to a series of Letters to the Public Editor decrying The Times's alleged bias toward Obama, and an article in the arts section touching on how his campaign is attempting to reframe the issue of race. For 75 cents, the Sunday Times on Kindle seems like a bargain to me, and I enjoy not having to shuffle through all the paper of the tree-killing edition.

The Kindle User's Guide - This came loaded on the reader, and I'm reading it a second time, slowly, to see if there are any tricks I've missed. (No link to this available at Amazon.)

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison - I always like to have one novel aboard, and this is a dandy. I was drawn to it in the wake of Obama's speech on race. Just now I came across this video comment by Morrison on why she is a big fan of the Kindle. I guess when you're a Nobel laureate in literature you don't have to worry that the book-hugging Kindle-mongers might consider you a traitor to the written word. Here's a taste of Morrison, describing her character Macon Dead:

Solid, rumbling, likely to erupt without prior notice, Macon kept each member of his family awkward with fear. His hatred of his wife glittered and sparked in every word he spoke to her. The disappointment he felt in his daughters sifted down on them like ash, dulling their buttery complexions and choking the lilt out of what should have been girlish voices.

Time Management for Creative People by Mark McGuinness - I can't remember where I came across this useful short piece, which I downloaded for free in .pdf format, then emailed to my Kindle for 10 cents. (There is a way to do this for free, but I don't mind paying Amazon 10 cents for the nearly immediate gratification of seeing the item show up on my Kindle home page.) The article is chock full of useful links to other writers, including my own organization fave, David Allen. The best tip I incorporated from McGuinness is to procrastinate by one day the processing of email, gathering most of today's flow into a folder to act on tomorrow. This strikes me as a small but brilliant adjustment of work flow, because the Yesterday Folder has a finite number of messages to act on, so I have the satisfaction of completing it each day instead of living with the never-done feeling that comes from trying to keep up with today's torrent of e-mail.

The Atlantic - I'm making my way through the March 1, 2008 issue, which I downloaded for $1.49 . It's got a terrific piece on the great firewall of China by James Fallows, a provocative essay by Michael Hirschorn stating that "one of the most exhausting things about new-media Moonies is their cultish conviction: either you 'get it' or you don't." (That's MR new-media Moonie to you, pal!)

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle - I admit it: I'm enjoying Oprah's world web event, a 10-part conversation with Tolle about the book, which I'm also enjoying. They make a quirky couple. He's a restrained German with the charisma of a paper clip, and she's--well, she's Oprah. This book is the top seller on Amazon, and Tolle's earlier book, The Power of Now, is number 4. I'm miffed that you can buy the paperback of these two books for the same price as the Kindle version, $7.70. But I'd still rather read Tolle on the Kindle. I use the highlighting tool for easy reference to passages I like in A New Earth, including this one:

"If you think you are so enlightened," Ram Dass said, "go and spend a week with your parents." That is good advice. The relationship with your parents is not only the primordial relationship that sets the tone for all subsequent relationships, it is also a good test for your degree of Presence. The more shared past there is in a relationship, the more present you need to be; otherwise, you will be forced to relive the past again and again.

How to use the Amazon Kindle for Email & Other Cool Tricks by Stephen Windwalker - I don't really want to use my Kindle for email, since the iPhone is much handier. But there are a few fun tricks I want to try, such as using one of my own photos for the screen saver which appears when the Kindle takes a nap. Kindle version cost: $1.99.

Article 33.3, Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act - this thriller lays out the rules for condominium associations such as the one where I serve as a board member. Good for reading as I doze off to sleep. I downloaded the .pdf document and paid 10 cents to mail it to my Kindle account for conversion and uploading to the Kindle.

First Amended and Restated Declaration of Condominium.... - See above. This is the so-called "dex" of our condominium association, like the Constitution that we live by. I am determined to read the whole thing, and I feel virtuous for carrying it around with me whenever I have the Kindle with me. I also have the Bylaws of the Association aboard.

"Second Earth" by Wade Roush, a Technology Review article on Second Life - my good friend Kes Woodward emailed me a link to this fascinating piece. I spent another dime emailing it to the Kindle, and I've been making my way through it slowly. I haven't spent any time in Second Life for several months, so my interest in the topic is on the back burner. (The link requires free registration.)

That's everything. I don't have the latest copy of Le Monde on board at the moment, because I cleared out the past issues and the new one won't arrive on the Kindle until early tomorrow morning. I enjoy practicing my French and seeing how the presidential campaign appears from Paris. The subscription costs $14.99 a month.

I've always enjoyed switching around in my reading, creating a sort of mind stew. Sometimes this results in wise coincidences, and my brain stays engaged if I switch content frequently. The Kindle, of course, is perfect for that. I return to the Home page, and the Kindle remembers where I was last in each of the items I was reading.

The electronic paper display is easier on my eyes than the backlit screen of my MacBook Air. Last night while observing Earth Hour, I had to hold it up to the candle to see the print, which made for a fun photo of the event - Kindle by Candlelight. Very romantic.

Moooving Tweetup to Denver..

2008-03-25T12:47:00.001-06:00

Moooving Tweetup with Laura Fitton and Michael Gruin on the Boulder Express bus to Denver! Photo somehow didn't make it...

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2008-03-20T15:41:00.001-06:00

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Obama's Statement on Rev. Wright

2008-03-15T11:03:00.003-06:00

To be honest, I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the full clips by Obama's former pastor, Rev. Wright. I've seen enough to know they are horrible. I felt a blow to my stomach when I first saw one on TV, knowing what a firestorm would ensue. So now the flames are roaring, and Obama has uploaded this video to address the issue. He asked for help in spreading it around on the Internet, so I'm glad to do so here on my blog.

UPDATE: Obama addressing this issue on Fox News and Keith Olbermann.

A Kindle Decision

2008-03-09T13:50:00.001-06:00

At Denver International, I pondered whether to pay .95 plus tax for

a copy of Time w/ glossy photos & pretty layout or pay 49 cents to

download the issue to my Kindle. In the event, I bought both versions

and look forward to comparing them on my flight to Boston.

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Desk

2008-03-08T06:22:00.001-07:00

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Amarillo Evening

2008-03-04T16:44:00.001-07:00

Canvassing for Obama...

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Precinct 6 in Pampa, Texas

2008-03-04T06:37:00.001-07:00

Chilly duty for Obama on a big day on the campaign trail.

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Last Canvass in Pampa

2008-03-04T03:28:00.001-07:00

Sunset yesterday in Precinct 5 as we finished knocking on another 154

doors on behalf of Sen. Obama.

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Driving to Pampa

2008-03-02T10:26:00.001-07:00

Give new meaning to the word Flat!

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Amarillo Morning

2008-03-02T06:45:00.001-07:00

Much cooler than yesterday!

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Amarillo Recap

2008-03-01T19:06:00.002-07:00

We're exhausted after a long afternoon of canvassing for Obama in Canyon, Texas, near Amarillo. Most of the people weren't home, so we left literature. I had nice visits with several people, including one guy who'd voted for Obama and needed information about how to do the crucial second part of the Texas Two Step--show up for the caucus at 7 p.m. Tuesday night to vote again. This is a very strange setup, but it makes the game fun. It's one thing to lure volunteers from out of state; quite another to coach them in this complicated primary-caucus game.

I experimented with the Nokia N95 and Qik, uploading clips titled Politeness Counts, Lunch Break, Amarillo Streets, Odd Numbers, A McCain Voter, Lotsa Walking, Practicing Politeness, and Canvass Done.

Canyon TX Canvas

2008-03-01T15:34:00.001-07:00

Door to door in the Panhandle...

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Lunch Break from Obama Training

2008-03-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

Hope Comes to Texas

2008-03-01T08:36:00.001-07:00

Our Obama-mobile enters "The Proud Home of George W. Bush."

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2008-03-01T08:14:00.001-07:00

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Headed to Texas for Obama

2008-03-01T07:08:00.001-07:00

Route 64 to Amarillo...

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If My Grandfather Had Been Named Hussein...

2008-03-01T05:12:00.002-07:00

...I would be Leonard Hussein Edgerly instead of Leonard Stuart Edgerly. Stuart Edgerly, my father's father, was an English professor at MIT, a man of quiet strength, musical talent, and unshakable moral values. Unfortunately, he did very young and I did not have the benefit of knowing him past my boyhood. I am proud to carry his name as my middle name.

Barack Obama's father's father's name was Hussein. He lived in Kenya. I don't know much about him, but I can imagine a grandfather who is as important to Obama as mine is to me. That's why it struck me as obscene when a Chicago radio quack I won't even name chanted this middle name as if it were a curse. Bravo to John McCain for distancing himself from that cockroach. And bravo to Momocrats for getting this "Call Me Hussein" meme going on the Internet.

This, to me, is a good example of how Obama is transforming American politics, largely through the Internet. In the old days, meaning the last presidential campaign, the Hussein attack would lie there like a turd by the road, smelling and affecting the discourse, raising doubt about a candidate. These days, such an attack generates a spontaneous, creative, motivated response from a multitude of individual voices, linking their experience to the candidate in positive ways.

My wife and I are in Raton, New Mexico, this morning, on our way to Amarillo, Texas, where we'll go through a volunteer training at noon and then head out to the Panhandle to knock on doors, make calls, hold signs, and whatever else might help make Tuesday an historic night. The name of the game is change, and it feels great to be a part of it.

Viva Obama!

2008-02-21T15:57:00.002-07:00

Every time I watch this, it brings me to happy tears. I admit it. I also don't think Hillary's lock on the Latino vote is as secure as it once seemed.

Kindle's Promising Long Tail for Writers

2008-02-15T17:34:00.005-07:00

I just finished a work-in-progress on my Kindle, Believe by Daniel Oran. I learned about it from the Kindle Daily Post which appears when I go to the Kindle Store on my device. It seems that Daniel Oran posted his novella at the Digital Text Platform, a free Amazon service which enables anyone to publish their work for the Kindle.

Believe made it to Number 7 in the Kindle bestseller rankings, selling for a limited time at 99 cents (that's what I bought it for), and Oran says he received "some great feedback on the novel during the beta test." This is quite a concept -- beta testing a book with real readers, as opposed to circulating a manuscript to friends and fellow-students in your MFA program. Molly of Kindle Daily Post reported the exciting next chapter of the story. "To our absolute delight," she wrote, "Oran reported that he was contacted just this morning by a publisher in New York showing interest in publishing a paper version of Believe."

As for the novella itself, it was sweet and pretty well written, in my opinion. A patient named Joshua turns out to have dramatic healing powers and helps make New York City turn to kindness for a day. Oran includes enough real-sounding medical knowledge to help a willing reader go along for the miraculous ride.

I confess I am toying with putting up my poetry manuscript on the Digital Text Platform as a beta book for 99 cents. It's one thing to put your stuff up on the web so people can read it on their computer screens. It's quite another to know they can curl up in their favorite chair with your work, seeing your words on the clear, paperlike screen of the Kindle. Very tempting.

It's one more example of how the Kindle has the feel of a writer/reader's gadget. The team behind this product really seem to care about writing and authors and readers. It shows.

Most Convincing Case for Obama I've Ever Seen

2008-02-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

Via Baratunde Thurston and Steve Garfield, I have just spent 20 minutes watching a crystal-clear presentation of the case for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. The creator is Lawrence Lessig.

The most mind-boggling correction in the video, in my opinion, is the refutation of Hillary's false statement in a debate that Obama removed from his web site links to his October, 2002, speech against the war a year after he made it. (All that exists in video from this speech is this famous passage.) Lessig shows actual archives from the Internet of links to the speech in the 12 months after he made it. In watching the video of Bill Clinton's infamous "give me a break, this is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen" rant at Dartmouth, I see that Bill's version of the charge has Obama removing the speech in 2004. Whatever. Lessig's larger point remains--that the Clintons have used Rovean Swiftboat tactics in an attempt to undermine Obama's single greatest claim to moral courage and prophetic judgment. The fact is that Obama spoke out against the war in the middle of his campaign for the U.S. Senate, at a time when the mood of the media and the nation made this a very unpopular position to take.

Lessig's video essay is beautifully crafted, with the best PowerPoint-style moves I've seen in a long time. Please take the time to watch it, and then forward this link to anyone you think might need to see it.

2008-02-05T18:55:00.001-07:00

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2008-01-23T12:36:00.001-07:00

This seems to be broken up a bit on the audio, but otherwise good quality. Nice addition to the Utterz arsenal!

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Filming in Chinatoewn

2008-01-17T20:32:00.001-07:00

On our way to dinner on Grant Street in San Francisco we have come <br />
across a crew setting up for a movie scene.

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Notes from a Pretty Good Keynote

2008-01-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

It seemed as if every third person in line this morning for the Steve Jobs keynote was toting an iPhone. This photo was taken by a friend I made in the line, Dr. Yvonne Fried of Ashland, Oregon, a very wired doctor and Mac fanatic. I joined the line at 3:58 a.m. One guy very near the front told me he had been there since 8 p.m. last night. We all had fun swapping geek delights and speculating on what The Jobs was going to announce. The hours went by quickly with so many brainy distractions. Plus I did a Seesmic video, then another.

Apple times the line so that the non-VIPs rush into the darkened hall to loud music and handlers pointing out singleton seats, and within a minute or two, the show begins. Here comes Steve Jobs in his black shirt and jeans, introducing 4 cool things, punctuating most of his explanations with "It's that simple." Nothing this year matched the spine-tingling excitement of last year's debut of the iPhone, which to true believers like myself felt like the invention of fire. And in truth, the iPhone's success has been hotter than hot. Jobs announced that in the first 200 days since its introduction, the iPhone has sold 4 million units, and that in the first 90 days it achieved a market share among smartphones of nearly 20 percent.

Steve's announcements of iPhone upgrades in version 1.1.3 were not the ones I was dreaming of (video, copy and paste, and Notes that sync with the Mac), but they were cool in their own right. The GPS-like location feature in Google maps really does work. I tried it walking back to the hotel tonight from the Moscone Center, and it accurately placed me at Market and Kearney. Except it's not GPS; it's a combination of information from wi-fi spots and cell towers. Nice. The new version also lets you send text messages to multiple people at once, not such a big deal in my world. And you can customize your home screen to include web pages. I took advantage of that to add an icon on my home screen for Twitter. The best part of the customizing-the-iPhone change is that when you hold down any of the icons for a few seconds, they all begin to shake, a fun indication that they are ready to move wherever your finger drags them. This is why Apple creates such loyalty--it's the fun factor. Let's make the icons wiggle and shake when it's time to move them around! Brilliant.

My wife and I hardly ever rent movies, but I think the new iTunes movie rental service will probably be a hit. I'm glad the Apple TV that I bought when they came out and haven't used since will now be good for renting movies, and the software upgrade won't cost me anything. I'm doubt I'll spring for the other new product, Time Capsule, which will wirelessly back up all the computers in the house, for $299 with a 500 GB hard drive and $499 for an impressive 1-terabyte hard drive. Steve's trying to help us all play safe on our computers, making it easier and easier to back up our stuff.

He saved the sexiest bit for last, the new MacBook Air, thus explaining the mysterious banners that had us all talking in the line, "There's Something in the Air." This thing is thin--0.76 inches at its thickest, tapering to 0.16 inches at the other side. I'm disappointed in its weight, 3 pounds, because a few years ago I delighted in my 1.8-pound extreme Vaio laptop that was available briefly in the U.S. but mainly sold in Japan. But that screen was dull, and the keys were small. The MacBook Air doesn't compromise on anything, except the CD drive, and Steve said the MB-Air has a clever software feature that enables you to poach from the drive of another computer wirelessly, even a PC, if you need to load a program or something.

I confess that I had pre-ordered this next new thing in my mind even before I arrived in San Francisco. The rumors consistently predicted something small, and that fit my desire move from doing everything on my two-year-old MacBook Pro, to setting up a better monitor for video editing at home, with some kind of portable satellite solution. So without even seeing one in the flesh on the floor of the Expo, I sat against a wall of Moscone West immediately after the Keynote and used my Verizon EVDO card to head for the Apple online store to buy an Air. No dice. The site was overwhelmed with traffic. I finally ended up reaching a telephone rep, who walked me through the purchase as if it was nothing special, an order for a new Airport Extreme maybe. But as we finished he said, "Congratulations sir, you will be one of the first people to own the thinnest laptop in the world." He also said initial sales had been bigger than anything he'd ever seen Apple sell, including the iPod. I bet he says that to all the early adopters. No matter. I can't wait to have the environmentally advanced light package arrive in Denver in two or three weeks. I'll be selling my MacBook Pro on eBay and buying a Mini and monitor for my desk, looking for any excuse to work remotely on the MB-Air.

Not everything wonderful that I saw today came from Steve Jobs. George Wilde of L.A. has Insteon controllers set up in his home to turn lights on and off, and a camera aimed at his front door that he can activate moment by moment. In one of those moments I'll remember for a long time George fired up Safari on his iPhone, clicked to the list of lights on the first floor of his home, and changed green dots to red dots, to turn individual lights out as we were standing in line at the Moscone Center. He then switched to another page, showing a second-behind-real-time photo of his front walkway.

I slept briefly this afternoon, then returned to Moscone Center for a presentation at the Apple-supported new John Lennon bus, which will drive around the country giving kids a chance to make music, video, and movies. Richard Dreyfuss was there, and I'll do tomorrow's episode of the Video Pod Chronicles on it. But now, at least, some serious sleep....

2008-01-15T21:22:00.001-07:00

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Richard Dreyfuss at Macworld

2008-01-15T21:10:00.001-07:00

The actor helped six high school kids make a movie in the Apple-

sponsored John Lennon educational tour bus. Very inspiring!

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Inside Moscone West

2008-01-15T08:02:00.001-07:00

The Keynote line has moved inside...

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Homeless People?

2008-01-15T05:52:00.001-07:00

No, these are Apple devotees queueing up on Howard Street in San

Francisco to hear Steve Jobs give his Keynote. I joined the line at

3:58 am.

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Phoning for Obama

2008-01-13T13:16:00.001-07:00

I'm making calls at the Denver campaign office, looking for caucus

supporters Feb 5.

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Mile High Obamamania

2008-01-10T18:53:00.001-07:00

Obama Denver HQ open house is packed!

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Workout with a View

2008-01-08T10:16:00.001-07:00

The place where I work out in Denver offers a fine panorama of the

Rockies on this sunny day.

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View to Work Out By

2008-01-08T10:13:00.001-07:00

The place where I work out in Denver offers a fine panorama of the

Rockies.

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View from the Bx

2008-01-02T08:40:00.001-07:00

It's a fine day to ride the Boulder Express bus from Denver's Market

Street Station to downtown Boulder.

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Covenant by Len Edgerly

2008-01-01T21:20:00.001-07:00

Eve11 and I have been Twittering about poems tonight, and I said I'd Utter an original poem if she would. So here's mine, and Evelyn's is coming tomorrow, she said. I'm looking forward to hearing it!

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@MollyBerry?

2007-12-31T17:27:00.001-07:00

Waiting at Logan for JetBlue 491 to Denver.

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How Sweet the Sound of a Human Voice

2007-12-30T18:22:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading a fine novel, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron. I believe I heard about it on the New York Times Book Review podcast, which is a great way to get a feel for new books by listening to interviews with the authors or reviewers.

What's most remarkable about Someday is the voice of the narrator, an 18-year-old New Yorker named James Dunfour Sveck who is headed, against his will, to Brown University. Not much happens by way of plot, and I won't give away what there is by saying whether or not he succeeds in his plan to use the money his parents would pay to Brown to skip college and buy a home in the midwest. Here's a taste of the voice, taken at random from the middle of the book, at page 134:

Since the gallery was closed on Saturdays and Sundays during the summer, my mother insisted on keeping it open on Mondays, because she thought galleries that were only open four days a week weren't "serious." On the Monday after her premature return from her honeymoon, both John and my mother had spent most of the day lurking in their offices behind closed doors. No one had set foot in the gallery, and at about two o'clock the sky went dark in a weird green swampy way that gave me a creepy end-of-the-world feeling. Suddenly it began to pour.

I like it when an author can lure me so intimately into the life of an unlikeable character that I end up caring a lot about that character. One blurber, Margot Livesey, put it nicely when she said, "As I drew near the end of Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, I read more and more slowly because I didn't want to leave James." Another, James Howe, compared the novel favorably with The Catcher in the Rye, and I think the comparison is apt, because of the voice.

Voice gets a lot of play in another book I'm reading, The Cluetrain Manifesto, a sort of Bible to us social media and new marketing zealots. Number 3 of the 95 Cluetrain theses states, "Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice." Number 4 adds, "...the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived." And, having worked as a corporate "communications director" for a big company 12 years ago, I love this one: "In just a few more years, the current homogenized 'voice' of business--the sound of mission statements and brochures--will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court."

I love it when I come across a real human voice, whether in the pages of a book or in the 140 characters of a Tweet. It's not easy to sound natural in writing. As a reader, I really appreciate it. As a writer, I just keep trying.

Yule Scene

2007-12-25T10:27:00.001-07:00

Fireplace at my parents' home in Cambridge.

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2007-12-23T08:02:00.001-07:00

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Squaring a Quilt

2007-12-23T07:49:00.001-07:00

My wife is working on a quilt with her dog and hubs standing by to help.

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Peas on Earth for Sysan Reynolds

2007-12-22T11:49:00.001-07:00

A bed of peas last night at Whole Foods at Fresh Pond, Cambridge. I'm

glad to hear Susan's procedure went well!

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Snowy Journalists

2007-12-20T20:22:00.001-07:00

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

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Grandson's Evening

2007-12-18T16:45:00.001-07:00

Bath, brush teeth, bedtime story. Another day of being almost two.

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Bay State Capitol

2007-12-17T08:35:00.001-07:00

Brilliant sun on gold on a cooold day!

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Did She Ever Return?

2007-12-16T09:04:00.001-07:00

The T is running! We're waiting for a sparsely attended service at

Arlington Street Church to begin.

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Grandson's Visit

2007-12-15T09:59:00.001-07:00

Utterly charming boy.

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Hot Chocolate After the Play

2007-12-14T19:38:00.001-07:00

She & I are at Burdick's in Harvard Square after a terrific play at

the ART.

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Reply to Robert's Retail Woe

2007-12-14T11:27:00.001-07:00

Robert's good-natured whining about a retail experience got me to thinking about how best to get a decent response when things go badly.

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The Memorial Church, Harvard

2007-12-13T06:39:00.001-07:00

I'm waiting for my parents to join me for Morning Prayers at Appleton

Chapel, at the far end of this handsome church.

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