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How damn kids, the internet and new media are going to make the entire world just a little smarter.

Chet — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:29:36 +0000

One of the reasons that young people take so quickly and so easily to new technologies is that they have no preconceived notions about how things are supposed to be done. Those who have lived with a certain technology for too long, and have never known anything different, become so unable to conceive of anything different, that they really lose the ability to see things in a new way, or from a different angle. One example of this might be buggies and automobiles. Most people of a certain age during that transition could only see the engine powered automobile as a novelty, unable to see any serious use for an inefficient toy. Young people, of course, had no preconceived notions about what was efficient or normal. But they knew that the automobile was the future.

Another example, occurring today, is media. It is not possible that you remember anything in your life, or in your parent’s or grandparent’s life, other than broadcast media. Television and radio are the common ideas of broadcast media, but book, magazines, and newspapers fit the definition as well. They are all a one-way flow of information, and the opportunity for rebuttal, definition, or discussion does not feasibly exist. The Web, however, has come along and changed that model, along with decimating cost as a barrier-to-entry in the publishing and distribution aspects of content communication. And your kids know it.

But what they really know is something that most people wouldn’t consider important. We are so used to having information ‘broadcast’ to us, that most of us do not even think with a mind to respond, or to participate. And the major media companies of today re-enforce this dynamic by taking their recycled newsprint, radio, and television content and re-broadcasting it onto the web, only occasionally offering any more than a ‘comments’ section for us to interact. But for the YouTube generation, media without participation is unthinkable. One of the most popular news sites on the web today is Digg.com, where all stories are submitted and voted upon by members. YouTube itself is more than just a broadcaster, and voting, response, rebuttal, and the community defines the experience as much as, or more than, the published content.

As we move into an economy where newspapers, television, and radio merge with, and are swallowed by, the internet and the web, the dynamic of broadcast media is going to change, and with it, the population that interacts with it is going to change profoundly as well. Broadcast media does not require deep analytical skills or an ability to articulate. Participitory media does. Or, at least, to be taken seriously, and to continue to be allowed to paricipate, it does. And so, rather than being just the couch-ridden, cartoon watching, cup-cake eating advertising recipients that we all were (and are), young people are growing up with the experience of talking-back and commenting on the media.

This is, and will continue to be, profound. As this new generation begins to mature and develop new media and media business models, the very structure of information flow will begin to look less like a river, and more like a network. As I write that last sentence, I can very clearly see, as I’m sure you can, that this is already very much underway. While the nature of this multi-directional communication in media is still defining itself, I believe that it cannot help but have an incredible impact on the communication ability of the people in that network.

Finding an idiot on a message board, or in the comments of a webpage, or anywhere else for that matter, is never going to be a difficult thing to do. It never has been hard to find an idiot, and it never will be. Finding voices of intellect, sound reasoning, intelligent-but-scathing rebuttal, and interesting points-of-view, however, are becoming more and more common among younger and younger people. People are learning to communicate in increasingly more interesting and complex ways, including audio, video, and multimedia computer communications to articulate themselves in ways that sometimes mere words cannot accomplish. And the written word, even when alone, must become more and more compelling in order to grab the attention and/or respect of today’s media customer.

This move towards better communication skills in young people is not fiction, and it is not likely to slow anytime soon. And with this eye for participating in their media, today’s youth are shunning traditional media types, and tuning into interesting bloggers, blog content, and new media. You may rely on NBC or The Wall Street Journal, but the kids in your neighborhood rely on Digg, Youtube, Google and a few small sites that they participate in a social network with.

If you’ve struggled with the idea that kids today are becoming unable to spell anything beyond “OMG LOL BBQ!”, or that there are comments on your favorite website like “I pwned you NOOOOB!!”, fear not. The majority of todays up and coming media participants are cultivating an ability to convey their ideas, thoughts and feelings in ways that we could have never dreamed possible. They are changing media as we know it, much to the detriment of the establishment, and they are re-defining the landscape of information flow.

What I’m trying to say is that they’re smarter than you. And this is just the beginning.

Yoga, Paella, and Valleyfair.

Chet — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:22:38 +0000

I’m reading a book right now called ‘How Yoga Works‘, because a friend of mine just finished it, and told me how inspiring it is. I’m about halfway through with it, and so far, I agree. It’s an interesting way to tell the story of the Yoga Sutras, and it revolves around a central character who gets imprisoned, and is forced to teach yoga to her captor in order to be released. We get to witness the story and the teachings, and how the lives of everyone involved are transformed.

It is interesting to me, because I’ve been struggling lately with some internal challenges of my own, in addition to some financial challenges that seem to reinforce the internal ones. More and more lately, I feel that I am not the person that I was supposed to be. Does everyone go through this? I’m not sure how to react, and it’s been throwing me off-balance. I just thought I’d share that, so you could get a better understanding of how fortuitous it was that someone dumped this book into my lap at exactly this time. I’m not sure if it’s going to result in me taking up yoga or anything so drastic as that, but it has surely had the effect of some pretty deep thought and internal soul-searching. I’ll try to share more as these thoughts (and this book) bear themselves out.

Sharon and I made Paella again on Sunday while watching the Olympics and entertaining her friends for the afternoon. This time, in addition to the tomatoes, chicken, and shrimp, we also added some Chorizo, which I assumed would be absolutely delicious! Somehow, though, the chorizo we got tasted a lot like dirty barn floor, and didn’t have that awesome spiciness that makes the Mexican sausage so wonderful. The paella wasn’t bad by any means (in fact, it was still delicious!), but I think we can do better. And I’m excited to try again as soon as possible. Next time I think I want to do this seafood paella. Sounds scrumptious!

And Valleyfair? Well, I just thought I’d fill you with some pre-jealousy. Sharon and I are going on Sunday. I’ll tell you all about it next week!

The Lord of the Flies, and my own personal Hell.

Chet — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:27:24 +0000

Kayaking is supposed to be fun. Kayaking with a group of nice people and some sandwiches in the Mississippi River Headwaters on a beautiful and warm Saturday afternoon on a pleasant and sunny day in early August is supposed to be a recipe for delight and smiles. I’m not sure what happened. No one seems to be sure what happened. But I now have a greater understanding of certain forms of torture, and a greater fear of Hell. (I’ve decided, in response to this experience, that I need to start being a better person or something.)

I really hadn’t had enough sleep anyway. We got up at 4:30 AM to load the kayaks and head up north, and I’d only been sleeping for a few hours because I foolishly decided to party it up on Friday night. I was sleepy and feverish, and Sharon drove for the whole trip, allowing me a little more time to sleep. By the time we stopped to meet her family, and then head to the river, it was nearly Noon before we unloaded the boats and began a 5 hour journey downstream that should have been hella awesome and fun.

There were bugs, of course, and that was to be expected. A little Deep Woods Off should have done the trick. And for the rest of the group, it did. But I, somehow, am different. Somehow, someway, in some fashion…… I am not the same as the others.

After just a couple minutes in the kayak, it began. The Deer Flies attacked me. At first it was just a couple, and it wasn’t too bothersome. Perhaps I just missed a spot with the DEET? I discovered if I went just a little bit faster, they seemed to disperse. But they didn’t. They began to swarm and attack. Viciously. Angrily. The rest of the group was now a ways behind me, and thought I was just being a baby about some bugs, and they shouted for me to turn around and come back. It was then that they, too, could see the hundreds and hundreds of Deer Flies that were swarming around me, biting and buzzing, causing me to panic and freak out.

I jumped from my boat onto land at the first opportunity, and began to flail wildly with my hat, and then a towel. The rest of the group sat dumbfounded, mouths agape, undisturbed by bugs of any kind, while I was unceremoniously attacked as if I stepped on a nest of angry bees. After a bit the attack subsided, and I tried again to enter my boat, but the respite lasted only a couple minutes before the swarm regrouped and launched the assault on me again.

I tried removing my shirt, covering my head with a towel, covering myself with a thick layer of DEET (which only seemed to enrage them), and finally tried abandoning my boat and walking through the woods. Nothing would stop the onslaught of biting flies that were covering me with welts and painful stings. For nearly 20 minutes, I was in a world of panic and fear. I cannot possibly describe it to you vividly enough.

Finally, when I was seriously beginning to fear that I had left this world, and had entered a realm of eternal punishment for some un-remembered sin, the suggestion was made to just get in the water. And this worked. If I kept my entire body submerged, and just trailed along behind another boat with my life jacket on, the deer flies disappeared. I have never been so relieved in my life. No matter how long I remained submerged, however, coming back out of the water (even just waist high) would re-launch the aggression.

So I floated. For 4 hours. Down the Mississippi River, being towed by the paddling of my group in their kayaks. The water got chilly after a while, but the bugs were gone, and I couldn’t have been happier. It was an interesting ride, and a hell of a day. I’ve told this story to several dozen people by now, and no one can offer an explanation for the bugs singling me out like they did. I don’t pretend to understand it either, and the rest of my group that day is as confused and bewildered about the event as I am.

All I know is that next time I get into a kayak, there’s going to still be snow unthawing. Summer is a good time for biking.

10KLF 2008

Chet — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:50:15 +0000

I’ve needed a couple days for my brain to return to a fully functional state after last weekend, but I really need to tell you all about the giantastic (I made that word up) hippie/music fest that is the 10,000 Lakes Festival, where my friend Jay and I went for 4 days of camping, partying, bathing in the lake, peace, love, and awesome, incredible music.

If you’ve been to a festival like this before (think Grateful Dead or Phish concert), you know exactly what kind of crowd was in attendance. The hippies still live, and I’ve always bonded with that type of life, even though I’ve always been too worried about money to actually be one. A lot of people think that they’re all just a bunch of smelly druggies with poor hygiene (and they are), but there’s a universal friendliness and acceptance about the atmosphere that is unmistakable. The vibe is refreshing, and it makes for a simply fantastic break from the real world for a few days. The culture shock coming from a corporate world full of deliverables, timelines, best practices, six sigma and lean processes to a laid back aura of peace and sharing is astounding. Adjustment on the way back is equally traumatic, especially when your brain hurts from all the partying, and your legs hurt from all the walking and dancing.

The photo you see above is very representative of my whole weekend, and I’m gonna continue to go to this concert every year if at all possible. The music was fantastic, even though you have probably never heard of most of the bands. In fact, I now have a new favorite album and a new favorite band, who I highly encourage you to check out!

I didn’t take many photos because its always so difficult to keep track of a camera when you’re wandering around in your shorts partying all day, but here’s a link to the few that I did take.

If you really want to get a better feel for the atmosphere of the concert, however, you’ve got to check out these photos from the official website. Enjoy!

Are you on LinkedIn or Facebook?

Chet — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:19:40 +0000

I finally understand at least part of the usefulness of Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites. The biggest value (for me) in using a service like this is for its usefulness as a self-updating contact manager.

I was looking at my contacts that I’ve made on LinkedIn today, and I noticed that a couple of people that I know have changed jobs. If I just had a normal address book on my computer or phone, I would have to manually go and change their contact information every time that happened. But because I use this social networking service as my contact list, my contacts change their own information, taking the responsibility off of me. LinkedIn is a site built around your work life, and using it as a contact manager is both simple and brilliant.

Facebook not only provides a way to be useful as a contact manager, but provides a single portal to keep up on the lives of your non-work related acquaintances (I think they’re called ‘friends’). As you and your friends begin to funnel more and more of your activities into Facebook (something that I’ve been using FriendFeed to accomplish, and I’ve been loving the fact that it all happens automatically), you find that you now have a single portal to keep up on the lives of the people you care about. The more that you and your friends use the service, the more valuable and useful it becomes.

The problem in the past has been that there were so many competing social networks, it was difficult to decide which one(s) to get involved with. Now that we have pretty clear winners with Facebook (for friends) and LinkedIn (for business), these networks are becoming exponentially more useful and valuable.

So the question now becomes: Do YOU have a Facebook or LinkedIn account? If so, please add me as a contact. If not, how about you take a couple minutes to create a profile, and then let me know about it?!
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Obama, I’m so pissed off at you.

Chet — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:51:06 +0000

Not that it’s going to change my vote, but this really pissed me off. See the full story here.

Chet’s first garage sale!

Chet — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:52:55 +0000

All summer long I’ve been telling you about Saints games, street dances, waterslides, drinking and carousing, but sometimes summertime means something different. Sometimes summertime means “get all the crap that you don’t need out of your house and garage and have a damn rummage sale.”

But I’ve never done that before. So being my first time, I enlisted the help of my wonderful and capable girlfriend Sharon to help me with things like pricing. And merchandising. And counting…

I’m actually writing this post in the garage during the sale on Saturday afternoon, and things are going great! We’ve made about $50 so far, and it’s only about noon. The oppressive heat from yesterday has broken, and it’s a pleasant and breezy 80 degrees. And some guy just gave me $5 for a crappy set of golf clubs that I found in the garage when I moved in. Cha-CHING!

I took a couple of photos with my BlackBerry to post here for you, and am delighted to find out how simple it is to do blogging in real time. Have a great day, and when our sale is over later today, we’re gonna go blow all this money at the bar! Bye for now!

Packing it all into summer…

Chet — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:57:22 +0000

So, yeah, sorry I didn’t blog about how awesome last weekend was, but honestly, I’ve been tired and busy as all hell. Summer is my favorite time of year, without question, but it seriously needs about 12 more hours in the days.

Last weekend was everything that I thought it was going to be. I ended up making Kabobs on the grill on Friday Night, then heading to the ‘Karaoke under the tent’ in North Branch, where I sang karaoke while operating in a blackout. Saturday brought us to Wild Mountain for the water slides and stuff, where I made a day of pointing out the staff that I worked there before they were even born. Saturday night, of course, was the street dance in NB, where I got to talk to dozens of people from high school, and reminisce about what a temperamental problem child I used to be. Ahh…. Good times….

Sunday was a Saints Game day, and I managed to snap a few photos of the Sasquatch that was there (not really sure why), and then we went home and drank some wine. Whew! Needless to say, it took me a couple days of early bedtimes to shake all that off…

On top of all that, I’ve been installing and tweaking Ubuntu 8.04 and Opera 9.5 on both my roommates computer and my own, and struggling to get audio and video to work correctly on 2 completely different computers. I must say, however, that if you’ve got a junk computer lying around, and you want to make it useful, I’ve become quite the Ubuntu Linux guru lately, and I can probably re-purpose it for you (not for free). I’m becoming more and more enthralled with Ubuntu, and how well it works as an operating system. I still don’t think it’s for novices to set up, but once up and running, it’s a pretty fool-proof way to set up a little internet/email/word-processing machine.

So, that brings me to this coming week. I’ve got more computer work planned, a Saints game, a trip to the North Shore, golfing, drinking and Sharon is making her first paella. Details to come, and thanks for stopping by!

Epic Fail

Chet — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:45:51 +0000

Ok everyone, how’s it going?!

I really don’t have that much to post about right now, but I haven’t put anything on here in a while, so I thought I’d at least make an effort.

Part of the delay has been that my computer took a great big dump last week, and my hard drive is officially fried. This is a little disconcerting on a couple of different levels. I had most of my important files and photos backed up (because this happened to me a few years ago, and I learned the hard way), but some of my most recent photos, files, and 100GB of music that I had are apparently now gone. If you don’t have your important files backed up on a separate hard drive, I cannot overstate the importance of doing this. It is incredibly distressing to lose photos and personal files, and just a big old bummer to lose everything else.

Since I don’t have $300-400 lying around right now for an entry level replacement computer, I decided to just install Ubuntu (which is a free replacement for the Windows operating system which you can learn about here ) onto a cheap, small refurbished hard drive I picked up at a local computer store. Ubuntu can’t run many of the programs that Windows can run, but for simple office tasks, internet access, and email, it’s a lifesaver.

The next step, I suppose is to find out if the data on that hard drive is salvageable using a technique that I discovered on the internets one day. That will probably have to wait a couple weeks, however, until I finally get a commission check. (Last month I missed my goal, and didn’t get one. That is unacceptable.)

I also managed to do some nice bike riding this week and some house cleaning, all thanks to the wonderful weather that we’re finally being treated to! This coming weekend is going to be an awesome good time as well, as my sister is in town from Missouri, there’s the White Bear Lake Manitou days parade and beach dance on Friday night, the North Branch Midsummer carnival and street dance on Saturday night, an afternoon of fun planned for the Wild Mountain waterslides on Saturday, and a Saints game on Sunday! What a weekend!

I’ll be sure to post an update next week, and tell you how it all went down. Have a great weekend!
.

MS150 2008

Chet — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:34:23 +0000

How horribly wrong things could have gone. As the ride approached, the weather turned ugly on us, and by the time we arrived in Proctor on Friday evening, my mood was as foul as the sky and the rain and the cold gusting winds. We decided to ‘camp’ in the gymnasium of the Proctor High School for Friday night, along with hundreds of others, and I was sure that I was going to be kept up all night by the sounds of snoring and rudeness. I was also sure that the morning would be much like the evening… Rainy and cold with a fierce headwind that would suck any joy out of this adventure in less time than it takes to say “Taxi, please!”

But that’s not what happened. We had a nice spaghetti dinner at the high school on Friday night, followed by a few drinks at the Powerhouse Bar, then off to bed early, where Sharon and I slept like the dead. And in the morning, we were delighted to awake to 55 degrees and blue skies, with only the lightest of breezes. Our ride began a little chilly, but dry and delightful, and continued that way for most of the morning. Saturday afternoon brought actual sunlight and heat, but the riding was so comfortable that we finished 2 hours earlier than last year, with only a slight sunburn. We made Hinckley at 1:30 (after a 6:30 AM start), and while obviously tired, we didn’t feel horrible or miserable at all.

Team Best Buy raised enough money this year to get us a tent stocked with food and beer for Saturday night, and my Mom was kind enough to help us wrangle our way into a hotel room at the Hinckley Grand Casino, so we were in fantastic shape for the rest of the day. Tons of food, beer, and liqour were available in the tent, and Mom left us a bottle of wine in the room, where we were fortunate enough to enjoy hot showers and a comfortable bed.

You would think our luck would run out…

But it didn’t. After an early bedtime of about 8:30 PM, we were on the road again at 6:30 AM on Sunday, and once again, the weather could not have been better for our ride. Now, if you were planning a day at the beach, it would have probably been a little disappointing, but for us, it was perfect. Overcast and cool, the day was perfect for the second 75 miles of our adventure, and the pace was FAST. Last year, the heat was so oppressive that it took us all day to finish the ride. This year, we rode from Hinckley to Blaine with 5 stops, and we were finished by 1 PM. That’s 3 1/2 hours better than last year, and we felt fantastic!

For those of you who supported us, and/or donated to the MS society, I cannot thank you enough. Being a part of this has brought many people out of the woodwork who have family members stricken with MS, and the kind words they have for those of us who ride are priceless. We have met SO MANY cool people and new friends on these rides, that it feels like the MS society is doing more for us than we are doing for them.

3200 riders participated this year, raising about 2.7 million dollars. Again, thank you to those who helped out, and as always, I have a bunch of pictures for you! Click here to check them out. Bye for now!!!