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LifeMay 22, 2009

The Grass Ain’t Greener

In 2004, I worked as a night time producer and deejay at Mix 100.3 FM in Denver. My shift was 7pm-midnight. Every evening I greeted my newlywed wife at the door from her day of work, had a quick dinner, and began my 45-minute commute downtown. I would race up Kipling Parkway to Highway 6. By October the darkness arrives early, and it would be pitch black by the time I left. A snappy chill would hit my face on the way out the door, and the night sky around the streetlights would be full of the frosty haze that gathers in the Colorado winter months, threatening to blanket you in snow at any moment. There's something about the cold winter darkness that makes me contemplative, and as I drove I'd stare past the oncoming headlights into the beautiful houses that lined the hills above the road. They were too far away to see anything inside except the warm glow of lamps and the flicker of televisions, but that was enough for me to envision having a house of my own, and the happiness it would bring. "If I had a house," I reasoned, "I would be making enough money and wouldn't have to work a crappy nightshift." Radio station = cool. But night shifts... not so much. "If I had a house, I would sit at home with my wife, and someday, family, and enjoy such a pleasant evening. I would work the hours that 'normal people' do, and it would be glorious." Eventually I shifted to working day hours at the station, and it was glorious... for awhile. Then I grew tired of that. And then I got laid off; try as I might, I couldn't outrun corporate budget cuts at the station. And then I wasn't able find a new job to save my ever-loving soul. Colorado began to be the problem. "If I could only find a job in California," I thought, "THEN life would be amazing. I'd be near the beach, the mountains, and Mickey! What's not to love?" Well, it's been just over three years since we moved to Southern California, and during that time I've learned something. The grass ain't greener over here. In fact, it's never greener anywhere. Our first year in California was one of the most difficult years of our lives. But somehow, through that experience we changed our mindsets. I changed my mindset. I decided that I could paint my grass. People do that you know. The lawn around me could be as green as I wanted it to be. It's easy to find cons, to see downsides. Learning to find contentment and happiness is so much harder. But it makes life so much better.
"Be happy. Talk happiness. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours." — Helen Keller
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LegacyMay 13, 2009

Must-See: The Story Of Stuff

I'll keep this brief, as I'd love for you to consider taking the next 21 minutes to actually watch this video. In The Story Of Stuff, Annie Leonard does a completely masterful job of illustrating how we get all our "stuff," where it comes from and where it goes. To be frank, this might be the most important short film you see all year. Hopefully it will inspire you to pass it along and start the dialogue in your own specific circle. Feel free to watch it here, below, or there's a wonderful interactive presentation on the Story Of Stuff website. //
LeadershipApril 2, 2009

Hulu, Napster, And The Sheriff Of Nottingham

UPDATE 2/5/10 Apparently, the U.S. Congress has the same question I do: Why Did Hulu Block Boxee? Despite the strangeness of having something in common with Congress, I am still intrigued by the discussion around this issue; in many ways it represents a larger precedent for what could happen as the lines between television and the internet continue to blur. Click here for Mashable's take on the story. // The other day, I was talking with my friend Steve about tiny, insignificant things like the increasingly dystopian state of the world when we stumbled on the topic of the music industry. It's not surprising, I suppose, that this would happen since we're both musicians and have actually played in bands together over the years. During our conversation, Steve asked me -- "If you had a million dollars and were a musician with a lot of talent, how would you guarantee your success?" I must say, it's a rather brilliant question. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have a simple answer. Or maybe any answer at all. (In fact, my friend Will is attempting to answer a version of this question with a documentary he's currently filming; stay tuned about that... it will be fantastic.) I pulled out my soapbox/preachin' podium and launched into a diatribe about how the music industry has seemingly made the exact WRONG choices at seemingly every turn over the last decade: Napster is born, and the industry instantly feels the cracks in their foundation. They react instinctively, rashly, by beginning to sue their customers, but it's already too late. As the imitable Seth Godin says, at the moment when the musical message was separated from its physical medium the world changed. Forever. It's impossible for the earth to spin backwards. The beast has been released. The toothpaste ain't goin' back in the tube. It's a tricky tenet in business, innovation (which is just a fancier word for change, right?). Because if you don't have a culture that absolutely celebrates it, it really can't happen. It's almost impossible. Innovation requires people pay attention to intangibles and things that don't exist in this present reality, and these are pretty specific talents that won't survive if they are not recognized. And of course organizations have to also deal with tangibles. This is a difficult, paradoxical tension. The thing is, Napster really should have been created by the record labels. There's no getting around it -- they should have seen this coming. SOMEONE should have seen it, recognized it as the logical progression. But like they say... if it ain't broke...? The "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality is dangerous, because the reality is that everything is broken, all the time. Our business systems need to constantly be in a state of progress because that's what the world is. And now, Hulu. What are we going to do with you? You started with so much promise. In my conversation with Steve I was just bragging about you, how the film/TV industry looks like it will avoid the fate of their music counterparts. With a company like Hulu, they're already ahead of the game! But now this? Really? Did we learn nothing from the RIAA? From where I'm standing, this story is akin to when labels began suing music lovers. Boxee is a brilliant, cutting edge program (currently Mac/Linux only, sorry PCeoples) that aggregates video content from the web. With the addition of an iPhone app a few weeks ago, this little program became one of the first significant potential stakes in the heart of cable companies everywhere -- a genuinely feasible TV service provider replacement. But Hulu doesn't seem to want to play, which confuses me given their incredibly innovative spirit. Wouldn't it be true that allowing people to access content would be a REALLY GOOD THING? And the MORE people, the BETTER? Why would you alienate a group of consumers on the cutting edge? Why would you fight the future? Believe me, I understand about quality control and all that. Perhaps there's more going on here behind the scenes. Maybe it's a technology thing. But to me, this decision seems out of character for a company built on pushing the envelope. And that worries me, in a big picture way. We all have something important we can learn from the music industry, here. An organization doesn't have anything if it doesn't have something that people want. Anything. Furthermore, once a company (or industry) turns the corner and becomes the "bad guy," the collective population will not feel badly about taking from the "rich" (company/executives) to give to the "poor" (themselves). Haven't we seen this movie playing out on the screens of the "music business" over the last ten years? If companies don't provide reasonable ways to get content fairly, the people will just take it. Perhaps even more disturbing, they will not even feel badly about it because you have become perceptually unjust. The masses cheer for Robin Hood, not for the Sheriff of Nottingham. Dear Film & TV friends, don't kid yourselves that you are above the fate of the music industry. Sure, your product is less replicable than music because it's more complex. But the crowds will get there. And besides, the content is already on torrents around the world. We can get it for nothing if we want to. But as Hulu has thus far shown, there are viable alternatives to this fate. Many people are more than willing to watch a few well-done commercials in exchange for quality free online programming. It just doesn't seem to make sense to limit the applications we can use to see it. //
LifeJanuary 27, 2009

What The Heck Is RSS!?

Perhaps you are on the cutting edge of technological innovation, are already harnessing the awesome syndicating power of RSS, and recognize it for what it is: a snapshot of what the web will become in the next few years. But if you're confused about what the heck RSS even IS (much less pondering its future ramifications), this post is for you. Now, I'm pretty nerdy. I get some serious jollies from techno-dorky articles, read blogs like Engadget fairly regularly, and sleep with my iPhone under my pillow so I can feel connected to the world (just kidding on that last one... most nights). But honestly -- can anything with the word SIMPLE in its title (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication) be MORE confusing than RSS? Even with my techie proclivities, RSS was confusing at first. I've searched all over the web trying to find an article that will clearly explain what it is -- and more importantly, how the heck to use it productively. Trust me: everything out there sucks. (OK, I didn't read them ALL, but whatever.) So I decided it's time for me to give it a shot. Hopefully my explanation will suck less than the others. +++ RSS INFO STARTS HERE At its core, the idea of RSS is somewhat simple. All it IS is a single page called a "feed" that compiles and lists new articles that are posted to a specific site. That's it: one page that will list the new stuff that is put on a site. A blog is the probably the best example. The reason people visit blogs repeatedly is to see new content. Most blogs have RSS feeds because they are updated regularly. Or take a news site like CNN.com for example. They currently offer two different RSS "feeds:" one for Top Stories and one for Recent Stories. Remember: feed is the word typically used to describe that singular page that is continually updated. Each feed page will typically list the 10-20 most recently written articles. With me so far?? The "feed" is crucial because it is the piece that will actually make RSS helpful. +++ SUMMARY SO FAR So... so far we have a page that is updated by whomever is authoring the webpage. That page is called a feed, and is essentially what people are talking about when they say "RSS." But the other piece to this equation, that is sadly much less often discussed, is how the heck we make it USEFUL and/or why we should CARE about it! +++ WHY YOU SHOULD CARE I don't know if you feel this way, but one of my biggest challenges is staying updated with what's happening around the world while at the same time not being utterly overwhelmed by the staggering amount of information that's out there. Frankly, I don't even remotely care about all of the news out there, but there are some things (for me it's things like technology, entertainment, and economics) that I want to make sure I'm current with. This is where RSS actually makes my life easier. What you can do is take one of those RSS feed pages and "subscribe" to it. The benefit of subscribing to an RSS feed is that the news you want comes to you. You don't have to go looking for it, explore a bunch of different sites, or waste a bunch of time. +++ HOW TO SUBSCRIBE In order to subscribe, the first thing you need to know is how to recognize if a website is providing an RSS feed. If the site you're on provides RSS, up in your URL bar (where the website address is) you'll see an icon on the far right side that will probably look like one of these: If it's got one of these (or something similar), you're in business! They're providing an RSS feed and you can subscribe. (As you should be able to see, this blog site provides an RSS feed.) To subscribe, though, you need something that will "read" the feed. It's just like you need an Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox browser to "read" a website. Make sense? You could most likely use that same browser to read an RSS feed, but you're not really gaining much, as you still have to go to each site and you'll just be looking at a more boring version of the articles. (This will probably make more sense if you click on a few of the feed links I provided above.) RSS feeds aren't pretty, and they aren't meant to be a substitute for a webpage; they're actually built to be subscribed to! Remember, the trick is to make the news COME TO YOU. So the question, then, is what should I use to "read" these feeds, right? There are a few "online" readers -- Google and Yahoo both have them built into their account services. These would probably be useful if you have a Gmail or a MyYahoo account. But for the rest of us -- particularly if you use Outlook or Apple Mail -- I would suggest just using your email program as a reader! This is where it gets a bit tricky, as there isn't one way to subscribe to an RSS feed; it varies by browser and by email program. If you're using IE7 and Outlook 2007, this page looks like it would be helpful. If you're using Safari, just click on the RSS button in the right side of URL bar. (If it shows options, pick one and see if it lists the things you want. If it doesn't, try the others.) This opens the feed, and at the bottom of the menu list on the right you'll see an option that says: "Subscribe in Mail." Click it. It's that easy! The major benefit of using your email program as your reader is that not only do you get the benefits of RSS and the latest updated news will come straight to you, but If you're like me, you have your email open ALL THE TIME anyway! This way, if one of your news sources updates a feed, you'll get the new article right away, just like a new email! +++ BLOGS As mentioned, most blogs have an RSS feature built in, as well. For example, you can feel free to subscribe to my blog, if you like. Click here for my feed (or click the RSS icon above). +++ THE FUTURE RSS offers us a glimpse into the future of the internet -- technology like this gives us a way to manage something as vast and completely unmanageable as the internet (which is, of course, growing more gorged with every second that passes as people add more content to its servers). I'm convinced that we will see more and more applications like this as we are forced to find ways to make SENSE of the petabytes of information that will bombard us. We're probably not as far from this as we think: So, enjoy RSS for what is is. Because soon it will be scanning your retina. ;-) //