horsepigcow

While driving up to Sonoma the other day in my lovely Zipcar (this time I picked a Mazda 3 for the iPod jack, but next time, I’m taking the Mini Cooper), I wondered to myself why anyone in close proximity to Zipcars, public transit and other great transportation alternatives would even WANT to own a car. I remember owning a car and all of the freedom it ostensibly gave me. I could come and go as I please…except when the car was having troubles or I couldn’t find a good parking space…I felt I had something that was mine…except it sucked when someone broke into it, mistaking it for theirs…I owned something outright…except that insurance premiums, repairs and parking tickets were killing me. Of course, at the time, none of that stuff seemed obvious. I could only really imagine that life sans car would be hell. I would lose all my freedom. What I didn’t realize is that I gave up another kind of freedom by holding onto that car.

When I moved to San Francisco, I sold my car and planned fully to buy a brand, spanking new one, but somehow I never got around to it. Between the public transit (which is nothing near to as good as my former home, Toronto, but pretty decent), SF being a walking city and Zipcar, I’ve managed to totally lose my car dependency.

But I still find myself relying on Zipcar (and cabs) more than I should because that same public transportation lets me down quite frequently. Sure, I have 511.org (and it even comes in a mobile flavor), but more often than not, I dial up 511.org to find the bus itself hasn’t read the schedule. Google Transit is a really cool addition to their maps, but for some reason, it doesn’t quite sync either. Why? Well, because that darned data is just not semantic…and the API’s ….um…where are the API’s?

So, after seeing the success of our friends in Toronto with their TransitCamp (a BarCamp specifically focussed on public transit), we decided to embark on one of our own. Enter:

TransitCampBayArea, February 23-24, 2008 – Social Text HQ

Now, this sort of thing is a challenge. We want to believe that we can wave our magic BarCamp wand over public services like these and make them all better, but it’s a wee bit more tricky than that. Currently, we have the awesome help of great peeps like Heyward Robinson, Menlo Park city council, Adina Levinson, Co Founder of Social Text and avid Menlo Park community activist, Margaret Okuzumi, from the Bay Rail Alliance and MTC, and many others.

We will be putting on day one as a non-camp style symposium, with pre-selected speakers from all angles….to answer the following question:

How do we improve the system in order to encourage more riders?

Chris and I will be looking to work with more people actually working on the actual transit system to see what we can do as Citizen Superheroes…as we actually rely heavily on it working well. We hope to see many of you out there.

[cross-posted from OpenMediaWeb.org]

One of the core messages that came out of the Media Web Meetup III: the Producers was this:

Copyright laws, DMCA, etc. were tools that were instituted to help large organizations protect themselves from large organizations, it did not imagine the negotiations of individual producers in the Open Media Web. Instead of bringing the massive amount of baggage these tools wield into our communities of indie content producers, we should start talking about how – as a community – we need to figure out an ethical set of protocols for how to handle these negotiations…and these protocols needs to be flexible, relationship-based and anchored in social capital.

Ironically, these protocols appear to exist moreso in the world of text than they do in the world of multi-media. What do I mean by that? Think about what happens in blogging communities. Very early on in the days of blogging, a community protocol was established around attribution, even when attribution desires were not voiced. If you were blogging about an idea that someone else had or using a quote from another blog, it was attributed and there was a link back to the original idea/text. Now, if you didn’t do that, you weren’t served a takedown notice, you may be seen as a jerk (relationship based) and people would lose respect for you (the loss of Social Capital) and they would stop reading your blog (real social consequences). There are grey areas to this (flexible), but in general, successful bloggers err on the side of caution and attribute as much as possible.

And this works great. It not only keeps people honest, but it has benefited the entire community, circulating ideas and helping encourage more people to contribute those ideas (the myth of the ‘stolen ideas’ is busted when bloggers get recognition and prestige from publishing theirs openly, which encourages others to do the same). There were no laws separating bloggers from bloggers here. No centralized rulebook. It happened organically through a series of communications and experiences in the early growth of the community.

But when it comes to multi-media, we somehow passed over an early opportunity to establish similar protocols. Images, audio files and videos are constantly passed around online without attribution, used without permission and then big, expensive, heavy legal tools are wielded to stop this behavior. When a photographer’s image is posted on a website that doesn’t attribute or get permission, the same social stigma doesn’t take place. Photographers are told, “That’s what happens when you post your work online”. And, more often, a photographer won’t find out that their work is being lifted anyway, since multi-media isn’t as searchable (a simple filename change throws off the trail).

Even though their heart is in the right place, Creative Commons doesn’t really alleviate this situation, and it may even exacerbate it. Many photographers find that it further harms the perceived value of their work, as lack of education leads to the interpretation of a CC license to mean, “It’s Free!” And, since it is a legal tool (and not a community agreement), it remains an externalized barrier that stands between personal drives to resolution that should be taken up within the web community.

We should really look at this as an issue to solve with community tools, not more legal clout.

The wonderful panel that included Jason Schultz (EFF), Lane Hartwell (photographer), Heather Champ (Flickr) and Jim Goldstein (photographer) would all probably agree with me when I say that this is a real issue of the Open Media Web. One that we should be as conscious of as the early bloggers were of the flow and exchange of their own intellectual property (with a lower case i and p).

So, on New Years Eve, a bunch of us picked a ‘Themeword’ (credit for the idea goes to Erica Douglas) and mine was pretty clearly: TRANSITION. I saw 2008 as a year of wrapping up things in progress (or things I needed to finally take care of) and moving onto my next phase in life (whatever that may be). It just popped into my head and there it was.

The morning brought the first transition. This was one I didn’t foresee on New Years, but was one that arose nonetheless. Chris Messina and I ended our romantic relationship.

So, what does this particular transition mean? How am I doing with it?

Well, let me tell you, that it did break my heart to see it come to an end, but it is something that we needed to do. Although our intellectual and professional relationship is awesome and we continue to collaborate, we hadn’t been paying much attention to the emotional side for quite sometime. We tried from time to time, but, well, we had SUCH an easy time connecting through our projects and our work and it was a bit of a struggle with the emotional, so we spent way more time over the past 2.5 years connecting the easy way. This sort of neglect takes a toll on a love life and we just didn’t want to continue to hurt one another, so we came to terms with it, hugged and decided to end the romantic part before it could destroy the professional part.

I still love Chris very much…and respect him highly. He means the world to me and I’m proud to call him my partner…in business. I just won’t be calling him my PiC any longer.

I am still a little sad, but there are hopeful times ahead. Citizen Agency remains. I continue writing my book. Citizen Space is still open for all to drop in. Thanks for your continued support. You all rock.

we wander so much by Svanes on Flickr

The other day, famous San Diego Fire twitterer and all around good guy, Nate Ritter, worked the day at Citizen Space. We got into this great conversation about the worth of useless knowledge, which reminded me of some research that I ran into a while back on Information/Knowledge Brokers

From the abstract:

Opinion and behavior are more homogeneous within than between groups, so people connected across groups are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving. Brokerage across the structural holes between groups provides a vision of options otherwise unseen, which is the mechanism by which brokerage becomes social capital…The organization is rife with structural holes, and brokerage has its expected correlates. Compensation, positive performance evaluations, promotions, and good ideas are disproportionately in the hands of people whose networks span structural holes. The between-group brokers are more likely to express ideas, less likely to have ideas dismissed, and more likely to have ideas evaluated as valuable.

Knowledge brokers, those people who bridge the structural holes, are sought-after because they bring information between disciplines. Um…BRIDGING CAPITAL! Duh! Of course! One of the many reasons why Bridging Social Capital is so darned important for career/reputation/business building is that you are able to adeptly fill those structural holes to make all sorts of genius decisions, connect key people and come up with crazy innovative ideas.

So yes, Nate is a knowledge broker. I am a knowledge broker. Probably many of you who read this blog are knowledge brokers. And it is a very very valuable skill to have. The rate of your success as a knowledge broker is the length to which you can connect those structural holes, which are filled with a great amount of information, connections and crazy ideas (usually from another batch of useless information).

In fact the amount of useless information one can amass plus the confidence at which one can deliver it is directly correlated with the amount of money one will make disseminating this information.

And how does one amass this information, you may ask. Well…by what I lovingly call: FUTZING.

I’m not sure if I am even using the word correctly, but what it means to me is the process by which one wanders around without aim, having conversations (with new and old friends), gathering random information, learning ostensibly useless knowledge and avoiding all tasks/duties clear and present.

I do this alot. In fact, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been the queen of it. Chris also does it and even though I get ornery with him (mostly when I’m waiting for him to complete one of those avoided tasks), I fully understand that this level of futzing is what contributes to his level of genius that I so rely on.

But Nate brought up a really important question while we were talking: “How the heck do you get someone to pay you to futz?”

Hmmmm. Well, while futzing isn’t exactly something we list in the proposal, it is important for us to budget enough time to get our work done for clients and have plenty of hours of futzing…some of which is paid for, but most of which is seen as some sort of in-house expense. What’s paid for? If we are futzing with a purpose and direction: for example Client A, who is in the floral arrangement industry, needs a community strategy, so I’ll spend days futzing around with blogs, photos, competitors sites, forums, etc. that are related or bridged somehow to the floral industry. If our futzing leads to the ‘BIG IDEA’ or a super amazing connection. If the futzing is being done WITH the client (sometimes we coach them through our process…or lack of it). In the end, though, the futzing that is paid for leads to some sort of result the client can feel is tangible.

But the biggest issue is that you have to do a heckuvalotta free futzing to get to the point that someone will pay you to do it. For example, you have to have an enormous amount of information to give away to demonstrate that you are darned good at futzing. This is why blogging is really valuable. People can display all of the interesting things they’ve learnt and bridges they are able to make from their futzing. By demonstrating this in blog posts, potential clients see their worth. In fact, some of the highest paid futzers give most of their futzing away (which pays for more futzing). We are continuously giving away free information, connections and ideas we gain through our futzing and because of that, we don’t have to go to clients, they come to us.

Knowledge brokers are good futzers because, well, futzing leads to more knowledge. Maybe someday, bridging those structural holes will be automated, but for today, it’s an incredibly creative and valuable job done by master futzers all over the world.

I’ve been working out for nearly three months now, all the while watching what I eat a little more carefully and staying committed to a pretty regular and fairly vigorous workout: 25 minutes on the elliptical trainer, 25 minutes on the treadmill (briskly walking for 5 minutes, jogging for 15 minutes, then cooling down for 5 minutes), a 10-minute ab workout (mostly from pilates class) and some quick weights if I have time. I’ve been doing this 3-4 times per week and have noticed that I’m feeling in much better shape.

The only issue is that, well, I haven’t really lost any weight. The weight loss in the past three months has been equivalent to a dehydration weight loss…about 3-4 lbs. That’s frustrating. At one point I stood on the scale and had actually gained weight! Talk about discouraging!

The most frustrating part for me was that, in my ‘younger days’ (I hate that I just said that), I could lose 5 lbs in a week of watching what I was eating and doing light exercise. When I graduated from university in 1999, I had put on MORE than a freshman 15…in 3 months by just cutting down my carb intake (not Atkins-level, though), I lost 50 lbs and was a svelt 145 lbs (I’m 5’9″ and rather large framed, so that is skinny for me) and wore a size 6. I was able to more or less maintain that weight for many subsequent years.

But something happened to my body and it doesn’t respond like that anymore. I consulted with a personal trainer who told me I need to workout 5-6 days per week, do 300 minutes of cardio in total (and not running, necessarily, but walking, etc.), a more rigorous weight routine and really, really watch what I eat (the carb thing won’t work anymore, I need to think about lowering fat, too). Then, I can probably lose 5-10 lbs per month (depending on how well I stick to the plan). WTF?! 5-10 lbs?! For all of that? Ugh.

The reason I’m telling you this is not because I need more weight loss tips or anything (although they are always welcome), it’s because I realized that my changing body and it’s resistance to diet and exercise is a good metaphor for how the world of marketing has changed.

Just like I can no longer take for granted that my body will respond to the same routines it responded to in 1999, businesses have to adjust to the way the market responds. Many businesses fall into the trap of having something work in the beginning, then formulating it so that it’s done the same way for subsequent years, then wonder why it doesn’t work anymore.

I just got back from meeting with many awesome peeps at Zappos.com in Las Vegas. I already knew I hearted them very much because of how much of a delight they made shopping for shoes online. As a busy woman who loves shoes, but has no time to shop, Zappos has been awesome. But amongst the many awesome things Tony Hsieh told me about the company’s philosophy, one of the most awesome was (paraphrased):

“One of our core principles is to embrace and drive change. Change happens. It’s inevitable. For us, it seems it happens every couple of weeks. We lead a culture of experimentation rather than one of strict processes. This way, we can always be responsive to the rapidly changing needs of customers, vendors, employees and our many other partners.”

This is a company with 1700 employees that is on track to make $1 billion dollars this year – not a scrappy little startup, so this outlook is significantly risky. Or is it? Tony’s approach to business is much like Agile Development: small, incremental iterations – but done smartly, towards a goal of creating the ultimate customer happiness. In fact, they also embrace failure in these iterations – as learning opportunities – and don’t let these setbacks stop everyone from continuing to come up with more ideas.

When I joked with Tony about them not being ISO 9000 compliant, he asked, “What’s that?” He seriously hadn’t heard of it.

Measurements aren’t dead and strategic planning isn’t either, but focusing too much on processes can keep one from being agile enough to embrace opportunities and a changing marketplace along the way. The irony of ‘playing it safe’ is that it can turn out to be the biggest risk of all as you watch smaller, more agile companies zoom past you.

So if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to responding to the changes in my body and most likely realize that I have to embrace the fact that I probably won’t be 145 lbs again and be okay with that.