David Kluskiewicz

An inalienable right is on the chopping block. HR5252 could enable the major ISPs to control what we are permitted to view on the web. What is truly disturbing is the possibility that an entity with commercial interests could regulate how we communicate, shop, and gather information. The economic impact of this bill is clearly detrimental to our economy.
Bloggers and major corporations alike are appealing to individuals to take action to protect their rights. That combination of intelligent campaigning from passionate individuals and major companies is a refreshing turn from politics as usual. It actually inspires participation in the democratic process. There are plenty of ways to get involved.

NBC and their Meet the Press team have refreshed political discourse. By offering syndicated audio of the program, they have removed much of the showmanship that makes television coverage of our elected and appointed officials unpleasant and confusing.

The 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates, the first televised presidential debates, ushered in an era of judgement based largely on visuals. How a candidate looked, how he dressed, and how he moved, all added to our perceptions. This dependence on visuals isn’t limited to politics - it’s present throughout our lives. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink”, he shows just how many decisions are influenced by visual cues.

The podcast version of Meet the Press has an entirely different feel from the televised show. Guests’ passions shine through, unaided by strong colored ties and energetic arm movements. Even better, empty statements that sound good, but convey no information, stand out like big red flags. This transparency makes for a great listen.

The re-birth of audio is going to drive communicators to focus much more on the content than the theatrics. It’s going to help eliminate a lot of the noise that distracts people from important issues.

In The Personal MBA, Josh Kaufman makes a smart observation about the once revered graduate business degree. Many books summarize key concepts taught within the concept of highly structured MBA curricula. Without a major commitment of time and money, you can learn the basics of finance, accounting, marketing and management. Sound advice.
It’s an interesting argument. I will never regret the time I spent earning my own MBA, since classmates taught me as much, or more than the classwork. But there is no question in my mind that I can benefit from reading more of the classics in Josh’s list. He’s onto a concept that has come up in both the press and in higher education in general. The ability to adapt is often more important than the ability to apply a best practice. To have that ability, we need to read and experience outside our individual trades.

Candidates running for governor of Connecticut, the 8th oldest state, have started blogging.The two parties use medium very differntly.

DeStefano’s blog allows comments, appears to be written candidly by staffers and provides an RSS feed to keep up on the campaign. Posts are categorized. It’s a true conversation facilitator.
Rell’s site contains a page called “blog”, but it’s just a dated html page, absent of any index or comments. It’s still early, so maybe there is still something engaging in the works.
No doubt, both candidates’ staffers read the recent Times article (login required) hailing blogs as a new channel to reach that hard-to-reach audience.
If these campaigns are elevated to a level where debates take place outside of the filters of MSM, voters will benefit from a new source of information and maybe a refreshing release from the words Democrat and Republican in every other headline.

Seth Godin’s brief experiment proves that search, once thought to be the information savior, is just beginning to scratch the surface.

Jeff Han’s Multi-Touch Interaction interface may add the visual nature necessary to manage mass quantities of information. As more and more tasks today involve poorly structured data, we require tools to organize it better. The processing power of even our most sophisticated tools isn’t enough to keep up with the text from one document, the graphics from another and the numeric data for another. Every day, we work with digital duct tape.

Publishing one’s experiences online, like any venture, creates both risks and opportunities.

Jeffrey Treem points to some of the inherent problems with publishing one’s experiences online. Adolescents and adults alike are opening themselves up to all types of perception problems by publishing their experiences. Educators noticed similar perceptions ruled when they applyied for academic positions. So, all publishers should beware the repercussions of opening their mouth or typing on their keyboard.
However, I believe that, over time, most of individuals’ posts (even ones full of bad judgement) will fade into the shadows of the big picture - their total life experience. Their posts, aggregated, will reveal more valuable information about their authors. Why? Because a process (i.e. a series of posts on a topic) shows how a person comes to their conviction. The journey is often more interesting than the destination.
In an age where uncertainty and volatility are normal, process is often more important than outcome. Learning how a person reached a conclusion (even a wrong one) teaches so much. Simply hearing a conclusion seems only part of the equation.

37 Signals, and their product, Backpack, have helped me deflate some of the bloated software I’ve been beholden to since 1991. Using Writeboard, a wiki-like shared editor within Backpack, I was able to conduct a productive meeting with a copywrighter and a designer. It allowed me to collect 2 documents and about a dozen emails into a single shared page. When I think of all the paper shuffling that could have gone on to work through 10 ad concepts, it’s encouraging to know that there are less onerous productivity tools available.

“Narrating your work.” That’s the real change that current technologies are enabling. On his last appearance on the Gillmor Gang, Jon Udell put today’s technology in context.

The opportunity that blogging, social bookmarking, and podcasting offer is not efficiency, but the realistic flow of information.Unlike a book, or brochure, these channels help us understand not just outcome, but process. That’s something that’s hard to know, unless your conduct is very transparent. Think about elections - personality, life story, behavior and voting record are all considered before making a decision. In many cases, there’s no difference between two candidates’ positions. What differs is how they got there. The process.

“How did you come to that conclusion?” Any time I hear someone tout a piece of conventional wisdom, I ask that question. Regularly updated channels, like the ones Udell suggests are windows to the elusive processes of how people come to complex conclusions. They won’t have all the answers, but they will definitely add perspective that polished statements lack.

Blogging and other related personal publishing technologies are all rivers of information. Updated regularly, they can provide better information on which to base decisions. Udell suggests that blogging could even replace the CV or resume. Though this method of narrating one’s work may not have caught on yet because of the inevitable humility that comes along with not being right, it will over time. There are so few truly new ideas, that it will be difficult to stand out. What will make us stand out is how we got there.

Scott Ginsburg has a contagious idea that could break a lot of people out of their inertia. By simply brandishing a stock Hello, my name is… nametag, Scott bucks the system of formal introductions, proscribed networking and trite business interactions.

Sure, it takes a lot of people out of their comfort zone of privacy and guardedness, but there are many instances where a viral icebreaker could save a lot of time and effort. Think about seeing nametags when you move to a new neighborhood, start a new job, join a new club or participate in a community activity. The mere presence of a name badge indicates that you (outsider) might be welcome. The absence would definitely show that someone feels threatened by you.