Will Knott

“We’re going over next week, and we’re going to see all the sights. You know. The Empire State, Radio City, Ground Zero, all the sights”

Overheard outside a bank in Clondalkin.

Is it just me, or is the idea of Ground Zero being a tourist destination just something that leaves a nasty taste in you mouth too?

My schedule looks full at the moment. It happens, a rush of meet-up (usually unrelated to each other), yet most of these meet-ups are to do with the Irish blogging community (and yes there is an Irish Blogging community). The one exception is an effort to get a maker community working in Dublin.

Tonight has the BTW, a Blogger – Twitter – Whatever meet-up in The Porterhouse Central put together by Jason Roe.

Why do people do this. Organize meetings? Meet complete strangers even if there is a common interest between you? Actually look forward to meeting these strangers.

Well I wonder if neuroscience and survival instinct has something to do with it. In 1994 Ronny Eriksson proposed that our autonomic nervous system, our physical basis for feeling anything is divided in to four functions. The 4 Fs; Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding and Fu… er… mating.

There is one problem with this basis. If those were the roots of our instincts, then humanity wouldn’t have survived past one generation. Why? Well mating might happen, but without something else then the subsequent children would simply be left on their own.

For a group to survive there has to be another F. Fostering. Friendship. Family. Call it what you will but a need to reach out and nurturer in some way.

A need to meet others, meet-up is part of our hard-wiring. Kindness is somewhere in there. We are more likely to offer assistance to our own. The kindness of strangers is rare (it happens). Social media has had a strange side effect. We “know” complete strangers. Or at least think we know.

• “You can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror, but the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you” –The mother of Chris Abani who talks about humanity at TED.

We know the passions of strangers (or at least their thoughts) due to their blogs. Thanks to the likes of LinkedIn and FaceBook (and so many others) we know who their friends are. Thanks to Twitter we know that they are doing now.

Do we “know” them? Sort of. Pen pals have known each other for years. But social media makes, almost necessitates a community. And in a vacuum, it will create a community (yeah, I’m stretching here).

But that fifth F. Fostering/Family/Friendship. So much of our lives are founded on that principle. How come it is still left off that list?

See you at the BTW then?
Will Knott

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“The easiest thing to do on Earth is not write.” – William Goldman

Gravanity is the enduring trend of aiding to consumers who want to leave ’something’ behind in print, audio or imagery. It’s a goldmine of inspiration for entrepreneurs and marketers.

I wrote about this before, but it appears that there is a specific market for such a thing.

“I hope you’re keeping warm with all those bridges you’re burning” — overheard

And now the end is near. Jaiku, my favourite microblogging platform is going to be no more. Google announced that the project is to be closed, (along with a once favoured Google notebook) but the code will be going opensource so expect Identi.ca to have Jaiku’s threading shortly.

Other users, Ms. Golez and Misters Neylon, Johnson, O’Neill and Phelan have all expressed their sorrow to see it go. I’ll miss it to.

The green channel is now closing, but its programming is going to live on elsewhere.

Will

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At the moment, I’m too tired. I had a long drive last night.

Driving in sub-zero temperatures, freezing fog forming overhead, hanging under road lights like dew filled money spiders webs; it felt like hidden, fragile beauty forming overhead, only to last until the dawn.

I feel tired. I feel that you’ll be interested in “we feel fine“. Jonathan Harris’ We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale. Simply, it parses blog posts for the words “I’m feeling” or “I feel”. It seeks emotions using cold technology.

I’ll let this TED video explain what he means.

Some RSS readers may need to click through to see the video content.

I feel I can leave it right here. Good night,

Will

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“Shareholder value has quickly become the best excuse for companies to stop thinking ahead and stick their heads into the sand. Shareholders must be complete idiots if their short term value is maximized to a level that it endangers the long term sustainability of the company.  And yet we see this pattern recurring time after time.” — Alexander van Elsas on shareholder value and the current recession.

Image via Wikipedia

Alexander’s work is all about creating passion in a workforce and making people more creative, productive and (that dirty little business word) happy at work.

The above quote hightlights some illogical thought processes in a business. Short term profit making over long term survival and production of innovative products or services. Of course the easy way, in theory, to do this is have different groups peaking at different times, but the words “in theory” show that plans don’t always survive their first brush with reality.

Or have a group that will generate huge revenues in a longer term that a quarter, and ask for patience, but reward those patient ones.

The discussion continues on Techmeme and Cnet, by Erik Schonfeld and Rafe Needleman.

“Go outside and look at the building you’re in. The concrete in the foundation hasn’t shattered just because the Dow Jones fell a certain number of points.” — Christopher S. Penn write about not panicking about the economy and about the things that should matter in life.

So what does matter? He writes about music, which I’ve written about, and he writes about family and friends. The concrete reminds me of a little party where I met friends from last weekend which I think went well.

At this moment I’m wondering about a one-off opportunity or going to Podcamp Ireland this weekend. Its an either-or and I’m torn.

Which would you choose?
Will Knott

“There isn’t a ‘right’ way of participating in photography, but there are good reasons for encouraging young people to take it up, and to use it to articulate a vision, and not just record a scene. But there is everything to be said for experimentation and originality, and for the idea that art need not be for the elite; it can be everywhere.”

– Ferdinand von Prondzynski, President of Dublin City university on photography.

See some of his photographs.

It’s not just for the elite. Words that ought to describe my photography. But I’m trying.

So I’m looking at leading a group around Cork on a photowalk of Cork City on Saturday, and the talk of photographs and photography serves as a reminder.

Starting at 11am on Daunt Square, through the Cornmarket Street / Coal Quay market, across the new bridge and up those Cork steps (Widderings Lane) to St. Annes and the Shandon bells.

Then down (hill) Shandon street and along North and South Main street saying hello to the Cork Vision Centre and then Saint Finbarre’s Cathedral (and maybe Elizabeth Fort).

Then through the side streets to Douglas Street with a view of the Red Abbey and the graffiti paradise of South Parish.

Personally I want to see if its possible to gain access to The Elysium (the Japanese style gardens if not the buildings themsleves) and then work our way along the quays to end up back at Patrick’s Street (and hopefully a chance to sit down at last).  Rumours of finishing at O’Conail’s chocolate shop will be greeted with thumbs up on my part.

I did try to work out the route on a Google map, but it seems it can’t handle walking directions through non-drivable streets and lanes.

So will I see you there?
Will Knott

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Usually I send wine related idea to the Bubble Brothers (and they can actually use them) but this one is just simply funny, but there might be a niche market for it. And I love the quotes.

“safe is risky, and risky is safe. In this case, risky is also risqué”

“He cracks open some wine, and then you put money in his crack. You get the idea.”

– Darren Barefoot on the idea of a Sommelier/Stripper combination

be careful with that bottle opener,
Will Knott