Global Neighbourhoods

Sorry Steve, It's been a bad day

My previous post was over the top. I'd like to say publicly that I apologize to Steve Rubel. I would like to take the post down and pretend it never happened, but it did and taking it down is against the rules.

I posted the last blog in the waiting room of Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, CA where Paula's 87-year-old mother was undergoing surgery for multiple fractures to he ankle. I disagree with what Steve had to say but I overreacted for reasons that had to do with my mother in law, and I do regret it.

Steve, I regret it and I can think of nothing else to add.

Rubel: Social Media is Dead. Me: Steve, how lame can you get?

Steve Rubel's parting post for 2006 declares that because everyone--including traditional media-- is getting more social, the term itself is meaningless. That makes as much sense to me as saying that because everyone is on the internet, the term itself makes no sense.

Steve points to the popularity of certain bloggers, to the fact that, as Scoble demonstrates, bloggers are starting to cover the same topics as mainstream media as reasons why all media is becoming social and therefore the term means nothing.

God Steve, what an oxymoron you are becoming.

You seem to have forgotten the brilliant implications of your blog name--MICRO Persuasion. You seem to have forgotten that this new form of communicating is about conversations, not Technorati rankings. You seem to see the wrong rivalry.  It has never been Scoble v. the Wall Street Journals.  It has been the dialog vs. the monologue.

As for me, the rankings and ratings are as much as a diversion from what social media is about as is the way mainstream media has covered political races, writing far more about who's winning than who has the best ideas for serving constituencies.

In that rivalry, conversations are kicking butt.  In that rivalry, we social media folk have fomented a revolution.  When you first joined it, the revolutionaries were huddle in mountainside caves, treated with contempt and disdain by the powerful centrist incumbent holders of command and control.

Now, the wisest of the media, of government, of business are jumping into the river and what started as a bubbling brook in the wilderness is now the mainstream. The forces that had been on command and control for so many years are crumbling.  A whole new generation of young revolutionaries, now in their teens and early 20s are coming of age and then the social media people will now be in the majority.

Steve, you are unlikely to play the role of Che Guevera, the young Bolivian revolutionary who help Castro come down out of the hills and take Cuba.  But once the usland was taken, Che had a need to move on to the next revolution.

Maybe you like being out in front of the curve and now that a revolution you helped to foment is coming into full force, it's time for you to move on.

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How to get Gmail in your Outlook

Regular visitors to this site already know that it is usually a very bad place for getting technical information. I am much more of an end userist than I am a technologists. I tend also to avoid have company executives show me how to use their products.  If the products are designed for end users like me, we should be able to figure it out for ourselves.

A few days back, while in a hurry and realizing that by using two email accounts I was creating information management headaches, I spent a frustrating half hour trying to figure out for myself how to forward my Gmail into my Outlook and the answer was not readily at my fingertips as I feel it should have been.

So I cheated.  I posted a blog asking for help. No fewer than four people gave me answers.  It appears they gave me three different answers and I have a hunch each will work.

Thanks for your generosity, everyone.

I used the first solution offers--from my old friend Tom Stitt of Aperial Technologies [website]. It was simple and straightforward and it works just great.  I offer it here so that frustrated end users will be able to discover it when they search for the same solution.  Thanks, Tom.

In Outlook:

1. Tools-->Email Accounts-->Add a new Email Account--POP3

2. POP=pop.gmail.com

Tick the box that says "My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication"

Set the POP3 Port to 985 and tick the box that says "This server requires and encrypted connection"

Set the SMTP Port to 24 and tick the box that says "This server requires and encrypted connection"

You will also need to open your Gmail account, select Settings (upper right hand corner of your screen) and enable POP Download on the Forwarding and POP link. Keep Forwarding set to Disable. You want to Enable POP. I leave the 2nd item under POP Download set to "When messages are accessed with POP - keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox

You can also setup Gmail to receive yourOutlook account - essentially giving you the option of having all your email "backed up" at Gmail and having web (vs. Client) access to all your email (nice option the laptop ever decides to take another holiday in France.) Gmail lets you set the reply address for each email account. Assuming your ISP lets you do SMTP relay, you can do the same thing with Outlook.

Pat Phelan shows evidence Amanda Crash is a hoax

My friend Pat Phelan continued on the case of Amanda's alleged car crash, and comes up with strong evidence that this is a tasteless hoax. Nice detetctive work, Pat.

Amanda keeps asserting that we bloggers will write anything without checking out our facts.  I think she pulled this stunt t make that point. I think we just proved her wrong. Have a safe New Year, Amanda.  Drive safely.

Technorati Tags: roam4free, patphelan, amandachapel. strumpette

Amanda Chapel reportedly injured in car crash

According to a webmaster posting at Strumpette, the AP reports Amanda Chapel, was seriously injured when her speeding Porche missed a highway exit, careened off the road and overturned.

This story confuses me, because I always thought that Amanda Chapel was an alias and because I cannot find a second confirmation of this story. Searches at AP web site, Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune and Google News have turned up nothing.

Can anyone shed further light on this story?

Technorati Tags: strumpette, amandachapel

What Scoble Can Teach John Edwards

Over at the John Edwards Blog, Mickeleh gives his take on the importance of Scoble's coverage. Now, a quick look-around does not tell me just who Mickeleh is and that would be helpful, but I find it interesting that the site is apparently posting some analysis of what's going on rather than the boosterism I'm finding on so many other political sites.

Mickeleh, it seems to me, has written a pretty good piece, with a clear understanding of social media as a toolset that allows transparency. But, I think he or she misses a very key point about Scoble's being there. Robert's most significant contribution to blogging is that he taught the rest of us how to put a human face on corporate blogging.

One thing most voters in the world would agree upon is that we could use more human faces on the suits who run for office. So far Edwards is out in front in trying to attempt this. He is not yet there. If he does achieve the sort of transparency that Scoble has proven is possible to achieve, then I believe he will be our next president.

That is, of course, if we voters like what we see.
Technorati Tags: scoble,

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Michael Hyatt to post his publishing book in a blog

Michael Hyatt, president and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the world leader in Christian publishing s writing a book called "The Thomas Nelson Way." He has announced that he will write it chiefly in a blog and that Scoble and I inspired him to do this through the Naked Conversations experience.

This reiterates what Robert and I already knew. Michael Hyatt is a real gentleman. He personally got involved in Thomas Nelson's bidding to become our publisher.  He almost did.  Nelson and Wiley competed for rights to our book and in the end Wiley made the higher bid in terms of an advance.

I'll be watching his project closely, even as I continue along with my second book being written his way. If you are an author, understanding publishers is really vital.  You may start with a dream and a need to tell your story. But, this authoring stuff is indeed a business, and what Michael is doing is generous and valuable to anyone even contemplating authoring a book.
Technorati Tags: thomasnelson, michaelhyatt

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About ethics...

There's a wonderful quote I learned in my college days.  I thought it was from George Bernard Shaw, but I couldn't find the quote anywhere when I searched this morning.

"Ethics is what you do when no one is looking." If you know who said this, please let me know because I think I'll be using it more often in the future.

Lately, there's a lot of talk about ethics in blogging and social media. WOMMA, a rightfully respected organization has heavily promoted its ethics code. Everyone seems to have an opinion these days about whether or not bloggers should accept free laptops to review Vista, which to me is the glaring non-issue of the day.

I believe people know when they are doing unethical things. They usually do them when they think they can get away with them.  Some people do and some don't. In blogging, transparency has become the word at the extreme core of it.

Disclose to your readers where you are coming from.  We decide as readers what we think about it.  Even if we do not like it, you have passed the ethical sniff test. Try to fool us, try to foist a favorable or unfavorable post as if it were one thing, and it turns out to be another, and hopefully you will become toast.

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Gartner says blogging to peak in 2007. I bet they're wrong.

According to the BBC, crystal ballers at Gartner Group predict blogging will reach its apex in 2007 at 100 million, because just about everyone who wants to blog will have tried it.  The respected research group also estimates that some 200 million blogs have been abandoned.

My guess is that they are wrong, but I can see why they are saying it. I think there will be tens of millions of blogs and that many people who wish to blog do not yet have computers or if they do--internet access. I think their are millions of people living in countries where it is dangerous to blog, whose children will be able to do so.  I think there are thousands upon thousands of company employees whose bosses will not allow them to blog.  Those bosses, over time will be replaced by a new generation of executives who will encourage employees to blog because it will have evolved into a more efficient way to communicate with customers and prospects.

In education, i think in 2007, we will see increased numbers of teachers using social media, including blogs, to teach and communicate with students. In politics, I believe 2007 will see a fire hose of elective aspirants chasing voters through blogs. Nonprofits, likewise, are just now stepping into the blogosphere because they are learning they can interact with far more people than through the physical rigors of grassroots campaigns.


What I do think will happen next year is that blogging will normalize, that a blog will be just another tool that employees are entrusted to use in the course of their job, and counting who blogs will be about as relevant as counting who uses email or the telephone.

Of course, if I am right and Gartner is wrong, they'll just pubish and market a new thick expensive report on how unpredictable this social media market really is.

Technorati Tags: gartnergroup

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Insiders think Edwards has nomination already wrapped.

Years ago, I was deeply involved in politics and government, but I'll save those tales from the crypt for another day.  Now, I'm pretty happy that I am far from that maddening crowd. But I spoke to my one good friend who remains very close to the center of it, at least on the Democratic Party side where he rubs elbows with people who consider themselves to be powerful insiders.

He tells me that these Party elite believe that John Edwards will win the Democratic nomination.  They believe he has the right message in his "Two Americas." They think he is primary savvy because of his experiences four years ago.  These insiders believe that all Barack Obama is up to is making a dry run, so that he will be in the right position four or eight years from now.  They also think Hillary Clinton is already too controversial and will implode long before the democratic nominating convention.

Me? It would be nice to have a personal friend who has a personal link to the president of the United States. I liked John Edwards the last time around and was among the first to predict he would be a finalist.  But then I was absolutely disappointed at the vice presidential debates of four years ago, when Dick Cheney just aboutput him accross his knee and spanked him. It left me wondering if Edwards had the tenacity and stature to play in the Big Leagues.

I still wonder about it. Four years is a long time. Losing to this particular administration is a tough blow.  You learn from that kind of stuff. Four years gives you time to think, to plan.  I have little doubt that John edwards will conduct a fine campaign.

I'd like to be convinced that he will make a fine president.