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From Bill’s online chat a few days ago, in response to the question, “Bill — oil companies and other big corporations run ads on TV saying how green and forward-thinking they have become. Is this sincere, or opportunistic?” Love it.
Reading the special report in last week’s Economist on mobility (Nomads at last) and dug this:
James Katz at Rutgers fears that cyber-nomads are “hollowing them out”. It is becoming commonplace for a café to be full of people with headphones on, speaking on their mobile phones or laptops and hacking away at their keyboards, more engaged with their e-mail inbox than with the people touching their elbows. These places are “physically inhabited but psychologically evacuated”, says Mr Katz, which leaves people feeling “more isolated than they would be if the café were merely empty”. That is because the “physical presence of other human beings is psychologically and neurologically arousing” but now produces no reward. Quite simply, he says, we have not evolved biologically to be happy in these situations.
Alright, all you aspiring agents of buzz. Warm up your hot little taste-making palates.
HOTlist item #1: Vermont Vodka. Technically, Vermont Spirits. Think, the next Ben and Jerry’s. And don’t judge them on their website. The white vodka (from pure milk sugar) goes down best, but the gold (maple) is pretty damn good too. Ask for it at your local bar; it’s being distributed by Anheuser-Busch. Thanks to college friend Mary Skovsted for making the trip down from the Northeast Kingdom last weekend to introduce us to the fruits of her distilling labor.
HOTlist item #2: After a long night of vodka drinking, the possibility presents itself that a gentleman will be over-served and, in due course, engage in ungentlemanly behavior. Enter The Foggy Monocle, a PostSecret for the morning after. Brought to you by the NYC scenesters modestly featured in the blog’s header image, Dane and Jung, it’s guaranteed to be an entertaining ride. Check it out before Gawker does. And send them some content.
A gentleman may, in the course of a night’s cavorting, be relieved of his senses from time to time. In the aftermath of such situations, the gentleman may be forced to IM, email or text with his fellow gentleman to help recount the activities of the night prior, or simply to discuss how the day is going. TheFoggyMonocle believes that these conversations reveal the true nature of the modern gentleman, and by reprinting these tales of urban mischief, we celebrate the American gentleman in all his glory.
And yes, I’m slowly converting the Blogatron into a Jimmy fan-blog. Seems like the only sensible thing to do.
I’ve never been much of a believer in big marches, demonstrations, or protests. Primarily because they seem passé and ineffective, especially relative to the organizing work involved.
But the incredible work that protesters have done this week to disrupt the olympic torch relay in London, Paris, and now San Francisco has brought me hope and completely changed my attitude on the power of protest.
As an organizer, I’m always heartened by good examples of effective mobilizing, especially when they’re self-organized. But these past few days have been different — perhaps because I’m in such strong support of the effort, or because the entire 5 day+ affair caught me by surprise.
I wish no disruption to the athletes who have no doubt trained for years to compete in this year’s games, but I don’t agree with rewarding a country that consistently abuses basic human rights by handing it the Olympic Games. In the years since it was awarded the games, China squandered numerous opportunities to demonstrate its commitment to making human rights improvements.
My friend Japhet was one of the SF organizers. Your correspondent spoke with him this evening to learn more about what happened on the ground today. I was primarily surprised to learn how often the torch delegation and its massive police escort were forced to reroute (the original route was never used apparently), and how the technology being used by the protesters and organizers — mostly SMS — enabled them to apply constant pressure with great agility. Also interesting: The comm’s system in place was both heavily distributed (to gather intel on torch location) and heavily centralized (to broadcast changing plans).
So, except for anyone still hunger-striking, we’re no longer using our parents’ protest tools. The elements of a successful action, however, appear to have remain unchanged:
(1) timing — global news media is focused on the torch, so hijack the news cycle and an iconic moment (torch relay) to capture hearts and minds (ok, mostly minds)
(2) targeting — it only took a few dozen to a few hundred people to make a significant impact in SF; not tens of thousands of people marching on D.C.
I am easily the only remaining person under 30 to religiously watch 60 Minutes each week.
Which is too bad, because despite the inflated Leslie Stahl and senile Andy Rooney (a cranky wingnut blogger before his time), it’s actually a great show.
For the uninitiated, here are the 4 different types of stories that you can expect to enjoy:
It has come to my attention that this blog has laid fallow for many weeks and months now. Intermittent posting at best.
I’ve looked into the situation and discovered that this correspondent is, in fact, responsible for said irresponsibility. The many demands of my rock and roll lifestyle do not leave adequate room for blog writing or reading. Twitter has served a paltry substitute (although i do love twitter very much).
Today i recommit myself to The Blogatron 2000. But it re-starts under new management. Same staff, new management.
With occasional exceptions, all posts must be written in 5 minutes or less. That’s the only the option. We ask your forgiveness in advance for anything that emerges as incomprehensible. Rest assured that these necessary measures are being taken in everyone’s best interests; for the love of the game.
Good day.
My buddy Jimmy. Easily the funniest guy I know. He has a dream job, managing and editing and producing content for Maxim and Stuff and Blender online. Which means that he gets paid to do what the rest of us desk-bound masses sneak off to do if we’re lucky: review the best new music, hang with rockstars and models, and cruise youtube.
Recently Jimmy’s been producing his own short satirical videos, all of which are pretty hilarious. Finally Maxim made their videos embeddable, so now i can share his latest:
Over at Blender, he has a great informal artist interview series going — here’s one he did with Justice:
You’ve watched the Best Of Best Week Ever 2007. You’ve read the Top 100 Top 10 lists of the year. And you’ve heard the billboard countdowns.
Now this correspondent takes his own dip in the hot-tub of reductionism and self-absorbtion by summarizing into a tidy list the most memorable events from his own previous 365 days. In a decidedly unordered list, this is 2007 in bullets:
Hard to believe that all fit into just one year. To judge by the ultimate criteria, if 2007 happened to be my last, I’d be hard pressed to come up any real regrets; it was an unexpectedly incredible year.
And I have to say, the list above doesn’t include work highlights (as if that’s somehow separate…) This was easily EchoDitto’s best year so far. There’s a version of this floating around summarizing the remarkable and world-changing milestones and successes that we shared with our clients and partners this year, but that gushing post will have to wait…
Happy New Year!
All of a sudden, 83% of the people I know and respect in the world decided to sit down and write a book this year.
Having tried my own hand at this writing craft, I’m in awe. At the urging of former Dean campaign colleague Zephyr Teachout, I penned a chapter for the recently published Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics. This was among the more grueling and painful experiences of my professional career (albeit ultimately rewarding), and I hope never to have to write anything as long as this ever again (i.e. a book).
So all of you real writer-people are deserving of a huge nod (or at least a link) –
First on the list: former Dean campaign colleague, friend, and fellow EchoDitto co-founder Garrett Graff released last month what seems to be quickly becoming the authoritative modern history of internet politics (i think there are some visions for the future too, but i haven’t read the second part yet): The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House. Check out this slick review he scored in the NYT just the other week — congrats! Likely the first of many books to be expected from “the astonishingly young Mr. Graff.”
Another friend and internet mogul (where mogul = smart internet-consultant colleague and middle school classmate) Brian Reich released almost simultaneously with Garrett a book that guides business leaders and social enterprises through their use of new media. I can attest that a ton of research went into this book in the form of in-depth interviews with more than 35 business leaders who are exploring and pioneering on this landscape; not to mention a great deal of well qualified personal experience: Media Rules!: Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect with and Keep Your Audience
Bill McKibben has been a friend, mentor, and fellow campaigner for many years now. He’s actually a professional writer, so he’s the last person on this list to potentially benefit from any additional blogospheric mentions. But I want to recommend the book here anyway because Bill is an incredible story-teller (i.e. easy to read) and writes more eloquently in this book about the virtues of Local than anyone else I’ve encountered on the subject: Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. From local food systems to energy systems to social capital, Bill ties it all together. I’m also thinking that this book had something to do with “locavore” making Oxford’s Word of The Year. It’s a great read — esp the acknowledgments page, because that’s where I get an unexpected shout-out.
On a related note, I’ve become a huge fan of the work of the Step it Up gang — an impressive band of recent Middlebury College grads who decided that waiting around for the political winds to change in Washington wasn’t a good way to invest their bottled up energy. So they rented a house in Burlington, VT (not far from former Dean campaign HQ) and got to work tapping the web to organize thousands of local grassroots volunteers all over the country. The outcome was hundreds upon hundreds of political rallies in towns across the country in April and again in November. Both days of action had a tremendous impact both on Congress and on the climate movement at large. And then, because they somehow weren’t tired after a year of 15-hour days, they worked with McKibben to write down all that they learned and heard and published it as a simple guide for local organizers: Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community.
Keep an eye on these guys as well — they’re helping to change the way we think about organizations and political advocacy (here’s a short interview that I did on this), and it’s been a privilege to work alongside of this incredible team.
If you couldn’t tell from the previous two books, there’s plenty coming out of my alma matter these days. One of my former professors and fellow climate campaigner Jon Isham just completed a wonderful and long-overdue modern handbook for climate activists and leaders everywhere: Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement. It has essays from some of the best, including McKibben, Gus Speth, and Jared Duval. Given the great deal of thought and legwork that went into making this book come together, I hope it’s ready by anyone doing any work at all to fight climate change. To crib from Island Press: “Combining incisive essays with success stories and web resources, the book helps readers answer the most important question we all face: “What can I do?”
Finally, I’m in the middle of reading Nordhaus and Shellenberger’s new book, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. It’s their first book since their controversial but excellent essay of several years ago, “Death of Environmentalism.” Of all the books I just listed, this one is easily the most dense with new thinking and most likely to make me rethink our entire approach to social change. It’s positioned as the new What’s the Matter with Kansas or Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant, and I can see why, given Michael and Ted’s backgrounds not only as wicked-smart academics and pollsters but also as “environmentalists.” They do a pretty solid Q and A with Amazon page that’s worth checking out. And it seems to be selling like hotcakes, which is great news. Congrats, guys.
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