Work Washed woefulness and the history of conversation

OMG! For REALS. I hate tweets that start like this.

So I started a blog.

Interesting, Tribe.net was at one time one of the first social networks started by Marc Pincus who I am proud to say seems to be doing quite well with his new Software Company named after his dog. Its funny as I logged back into Tribe today its been almost a year= and before that it was two years as I was kidnapped in Manila and held against my will for 22 months and ten days. Its interesting to see the evolution of everything, interesting to see how innovative tribe really was= and I am sad that for all its brilliance it never really took off.

I have a few theories most of which stem around FOCUS.

As my great mate Scott Farrell of IC Consulting says- be a cheese knife not a swiss army knife.

here is to the next year, here is to Tribe, and all the others with innovation, disruption in their blood

Waking up surrounded by pussy

Manila is hot, the humidity is stifling at times...So yesterday full of meetings and cross city travel was a hell day for me. I am not certain if anyone knows what it is like to do a startup, this will be my third (like I have been involved in more but only 3 where its all my time) Anyway besides being at the bottom rungs of maslows hierarchy of needs the energy is unrelenting. I had phenomenal breakfast of bangus(a fish), garlic rice, salad and egg during a meeting at 8am the morning (after a Bible Study I went to ended like at 1am) so I got like a few hours of sleep. So anyway lost the train of thought...I had a meeting at 8am, then a long hard core discovery meeting with investor group at 11am then finished at 2pm for a quick lunch consisting of a chocolate chip cookie. Then the hour drive through the worst traffic in Manila to go to an appointment in Malate...then all the way back through that insane traffic to my house for a shower at 5pm (sweating through dress shirts in tropical heat) then a meeting at 6pm, then another at 8pm then another at 10pm finishing the whole day at 12:00am.

Long day. so worthwhile. Makes me happy to be alive. My business partners faith in me is refreshing- and fuels me. So anyway I had a three ice cold beers with my advisor taking myself home about 1:30am. No big deal.

Now here is where it gets interesting.

I was tired. The apartment was hot, since only I and my friend Hans live alone I enjoy my bachelor hood. So when walking up the stairs I realised I better just take my clothes off and so I did and turned on the fan (A very Big one) on high and so as I do I fell asleep naked.

This morning I was awoken by my roommate Hans kicking my foot laughing very loud...

MEW, MEW MEW!

"DUDE WHAT THE HELL!" I awoke to all the meows. And realised the cat was sleeping with me, worse she had picked up all her kittens (now a week old) and carried each kitten up the stairs one by one, and put them again one by one in my bed. So we have a naked very tired man with a kitten on his chest, (thankfully a pillow squashed in between my nether region) two kittens squirming all over and a fourth suckling away on mama cat who was looking at me with big ol eyes purring.

GREAT. Then he tells me

"Yea Bro you should see the pictures I took!"

My Personal Commitment

I wrote this for the project I am working on and thought it was cool and so I am sharing it.

Integrity

The big things start with the small and simple things. I will be impeccable with my word. I will hold each person accountable for the things they say. If I have no integrity on the small things such as my personal interaction, I will never be able to hold others accountable on the larger things.
Unconditional Responsibility

I will take unconditional responsibility for my life. I see myself as a participant, a central character, one who has directly contributed to the current situation and therefore directly affect its future. I have response-ability: The ability to choose to respond to any situation. I choose my thoughts, my attitudes and the behavior that manifests. I will never shift accountability to a third party or a force out of my control. I realize that if I want to be part of the solution I must also see myself as a contributor to the problem, if I cannot see my accountability to a situation I can not change it. I realize that there are external forces beyond my control; I take these neither as blessings or curses merely as a challenge to overcome.
Execution

Execution requires discipline.
Humility

I accept that I do not see things as they are, but as I am. I will always question the validity of my own perspective and opinion. I do not possess "The Truth" but merely my truth which is only my perspective and I hold my peers perspective just as valid. I realize there are many ways to look at the world and each has its own bright and blind spots. Only from the perspective of openness and humility can I hold the diversity to be more inclusive.

.. ..

This is my commitment, I will be impeccable with my word; take unconditional responsibility, execute, remain humble and I will hold others accountable for their commitment._____________________

Stop Web 2.0

1. The internet is dead.

Really... read that again.

Cyberspace doesn't exist.

Really.

The internet is no longer something you LOG INTO or DIAL into. It is in your mobile phone, it is in your PDA, it is in your microwave, it is in your car. The internet ... it is all around us.

The internet is no longer some place, no longer a place of places.
The internet is a sea of conversations that is navigated by search.

Everything is simple: conversations and search.

Everything.

People don't say radio or television is some "other place or space." They just accept the fact that, on certain frequencies, information is transmitted that is reproduced using technology called a television.

Internet Protocol is the same thing.

The meme that there even is a cyberspace is several years post mortem...
2. STOP WEB 2.0

Stop it. We already have an internet.

Look at fact:

Tim Berners Lee - the inventor of the web as we know it, the Gutenberg of our time. His science project now has 1 billion users around the world. And they are using the internet, not Web 2.0.

Surprisingly a lot of the 1 billion of these early adopters serve their interests within their own various cultures using the Web - the internet as a tool, not a place.

Web 2.0 started as a good idea. That idea has had its day. Good little dog. Now go away.

The importance we know was the focus on open development standards letting websites share information much more easily and the breaking down the Berlin-Walled gardens of information and syndicating. And even with all the new ways to do it, this is not about the technology.

The ClueTrain Manifesto let us understand markets are conversations. Blogging exploded on the scene showing these conversations have power. Blogging takes conversations and makes them permanent, indexible, and archivable. Each human has a voice, by blogging the different voices now can be harnessesed. Thus the internet itself is now a large knowledge management databasea sea of conversations.

Google has shown us the importance of Search for data and information.

Technorati shows us the importance of searching and sifting through conversations.

When one starts reading the work of John Seely Brown...we see that show the world operates more by social sciences than through technology. The social sciences are sometimes criticized as being less scientific than the natural sciences but that is okay too because...

3. Technology is the enabler of business not its purpose.

Let us talk about the lowercase semantic web. Our effort is called The Leviticus Project. We believe these things:

1. Use what we have. No need to build a whole new Web.
2. The user is the center of everything.
3. User's thoughts are the root of everything. After thought you have action. The action has Intent.
4. The path of the Action (usually a search) is the Desire Line or cow path.
5. People only have one face- they should have the choice of only one secure id that THEY own. Not a government, not Microsoft, not Yahoo and no, not even Google.
6. The users own their information and their social network is private and you don't own it, you only get to have access to use or what they allow you too.
7. The users social network is theirs attached to their secure digital ID. They can add this to any YASN or tool; this does not mean you have the right to those relationships.
8. Support open standards.
9. Get rid of walled information gardens.
10. Stop Web 2.0. Stop it. We already have an internet.

Just our two pesos.

Manila- long days hot nights typhoons and the rest

been so busy \ been so lonely- don't laugh- seems those you are about are often the hardest to talk too when overseas.
that and i am forever a romantic- and chasing that I guess which is on far away seas and lands.

this has been a growth period forme...

I amnow as I write this sitting out typhoon

Pandora Squared, Manila, San Francisco, Sydney and a City near you

Holy crap I am busy. Been Setting Up Fight Clubs...

Why it is GOOD to FAIL

PICTURE TITLE : 12:01am Wack-a-Mole! Hunting Bugs in Software



How will Pandora Squared be successful?

* It is not our shiny products as they can rust
* It is not our technology as that can be copied
* It is not our people because they can leave
* It is not our passionate clients because they can fire us…

* The key to Pandora Squared’ success will be our ability to listen to the market and have agile processes in place to meet its ever changing needs.

One of the things I often notice is that very few people blog about their mistakes, or the problems and issues facing them. I mean some do, don’t get me wrong but a lot of corporate or innovation blogs talk about the good stuff all the time. Well, I don’t know if it’s good to not fail. I mean I want to hear about your failures too, what can’t you get right? What can’t we? How can we help each other? I want to highlight something of a failure and turn it into a positive! I think it may be a strength that we acknowledge our own struggles? Right now it is late; I don’t want to be blogging about administration BS stuff like email, new servers, ruby on rails testing on our applications that are having yucky embarrassing errors when people play with their profiles…

But it is true we are a global company of young passionate (sometimes I think we have to be starting some sort of cult) geeks. Right now we are testing our new mail server…

its 11:30pm, their isn’t anyone else to call its us three. Well I mean we could wake up, never mind. Where is Hunter? Hunter is no longer on IM. Ok it testing applications and logging the errors in TRAC time. </ rambling>

The benefit of our failing may perhaps be something pretty impressive when you think about it…We have teams on three continents. We are 100% bootstrapped and our support process is all done via VOIP, IM, TRAC and our self made software like our engine and wikis. We eat our own dog food. (Dolphin safe Tuna for those asking) The benefit?

When our customer needs something we know how to take care of it. We use off the shelf cool stuff, or our own technology. And we are finding no matter what the problem, technical glitch or hurdle, by FAILING, we only learn.

I remember reading the Talent Myth by Malcolm Gladwell. Wonderful little document that what I found important was the concept that companies that celebrated intelligent people propped up the ego. Soon they built an ego centric culture that could not fail. So no one did fail, everything was whitewashed and foolish; soon the emperor wore no clothes.

Today you can still hear that strange howl in the wind when a previous Enron employee speaks of the amazing talent they had amassed…

We are doing today what a lot of other people are talking about, blogs, remote teams on a budget, paperless office, mobile internet and mobile social software. Ok, some of our stuff still doesn’t work good enough to give to the world; (grumble) it works good enough for us internally…

I can not wait to see where the next 6 months take us.

TAGS: phpvsruby, web 2.0 business social employees, ruby vs php syntax,Viral Boosts YouTube Traffic, rubyonrails, Ajax, PHP

what I have learned in 2005

Every year I take time out and reflect on the ten things I have learned the previous year. This is what I have learned in 2004.


What I have learned in 2004


1) Of everything I have ever known and done, I have found that consistency with character and persistence are the most important qualities I can exude.
2) I must take time out for myself.
3) Even in my darkest hour, God is with me.
4) A few days of rest does wonders for all of my life.
5) I have a few true wonderful friends, and I miss and love em a lot.
6) Thoughts are the things that begin everything, by me controlling my thoughts I can then control the rest of my life.
7) To ask others to do anything I must first be willing to do it myself.
8) Disciplined thought, disciplined action, there is really something about my old Uncle getting up every day at 4am and running a couple of miles…
9) I have a finite amount of time, its up to me to organize how I spend it.
10) Happiness is not just a passing emotion, its something I can work and strive for.


What I have learned in 2005

1) Character is Destiny.
2) Trust your Gut, and then get everything in writing.
3) The term Angel Investor can have two meanings.
4) Never mix love and business
5) When in doubt about something, action is better than waiting for better solution.
6) Worry only about the stuff you can change, even when everything seems to have hit the fan, you can only do what you can do, so don’t worry about things you have no control over.
7) Trying to live a life of purpose means planning, following up on those plans and having people challenge you on missing your targets, whether physically, financially or spiritually.
8) Even in my darkest hour God is with me.
9) Laugh, and remember how to play.
10) Take time out for yourself.
11) Share, give and be generous.
12) Pull the weeds and prune your life.
13) Its okay if you don’t know exactly where you are headed, no one else does either.
14) We are all just doing the best we can.
15) I still need to learn to let go.

Pandora Squared Announces P2 Genesis Social Software Engine

Hey I worked a long time to get something this cool to market:

www.pandorasquared.com/articl...-system



Milpitas, California- 29 December 2005 – Pandora Squared today announced the release of P2 Genesis Engine® 2.2. The P2 Genesis Engine is a Ruby on Rails/AJAX Social Software and Content Management System.

P2 Genesis Engine enables business to embrace social software and Web 2.0 philosophies and tools. P2 Genesis Engine has a core, which supports pluggable modules that enable additional functionality.
The modules available for P2 Genesis Engine provide a wide assortment of features including:

* FOAF (Friend of a Friend networks),
* blogs,
* forums,
* email, IM,
* Picture uploading,
* Workflow and document sharing,
* Flickr integration,
* del.icio.us integration,
* e-commerce module and workflow,
* mailing list management.

static.flickr.com/43/791612...c5a036.jpg

Drag and Drop Networks on the Fly





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User Profile



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Content Management System





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Example for media

P2 Genesis Engine’s Folksonomy versus taxonomy/classification module is especially interesting, in that it allows any content to be classified with a flexible tagging system.

Some of the more special roles that P2 Genesis Engine has filled include company intranets, Knowledge Management and Assessment (Skillsview), Classifieds and e-learning (myBennu), art communities and project management.

P2 Genesis Engine’s focus on user control and seamless functions through AJAX is what makes a rich clean seamless user experience.

P2 Genesis Engine 2.2 is a major update with the following main new features: o P2 Genesis Engine Blogs o P2 Genesis Forums with Whispers o User profiles and member management o Photo and media uploading o Email and IM o Group Mail and mail management o Knowledge management engine, o Folksonomy information architecture o User defined custom Friend of a Friend Networks o User or Admin defined profile and content security o del.icio.us and Flickr integration o Ruby on Rails, MySQL, AJAX

“The P2 Genesis Engine is currently available only to Catalyst Clients of Pandora Squared.” Citing “Technology is the enabler of business not its purpose,” Kevin Leversee Co-Founder and Chief Courage Officer of Pandora Squared a Web 2.0 and business consultancy goes on to say “The Social Web is changing media, marketing, politics and culture. We are not the only one’s who realise this so we aim with our cluetrain philosophy and agile software development to be a pivitol player supporting existing communities of interest, organizations or events. We are not out to create YASN’s but real tangible value and grow business using technologies and methodologies that are proven.”
Pandora Squared is a Web 2.0 and business consultancy, we enable communication with your customers and within your organisation, making visible the invisible markets and conversations that are occurring today. Contact us today for a free conversation and needs analysis. info@pandorasquared.com We love what we do.

Asia and Pacific: Sydney, North America: San Jose, Central America: Belize

Pandora Squared » helps you increase and globally expand your business. We deliver agile solutions that enable communication with your customers and within your organisation. Pandora Squared, P2 Genesis Engine, Skillsview, mybennu and Catalyst

Copyright © 2005 Aphrodite Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I'm in Nor Cal for Pandora Squared opening San Jose Office

Hey fellow social software experts and marketers and entreprenuers...I am in Northern California on an ever tightening schedule so feel free to contact me for a coffee and a chat. I want to network in person to see what your up too and talk of synergies. We may be needing more people soon too!