State of the Union

I’m sitting here on my laptop with 4 tabs open in Chrome, one of which is the State of the Union address streaming live from the White House website. In another tab I have Twitter running and I’m amazed to see the number of people who are tweeting parts of the president’s speech.

At first I thought that was kind of cool, but now I’m getting a little confused by it. I don’t understand why certain people are sending these tweets. Do they agree with those points, or do they want to emphasize them?  Maybe they are trying to hit the highlights so that people not watching it can get the ‘cliff note’ version of the address in real time. 

I’m also confused why people are tweeting parts of the speech given the fact that the speech was posted to the internet late this afternoon. The exact content of the speech is out there to read for anyone who is interested.

But most of all I think the whole thing is totally awesome. Twitter is going nuts, the address is streaming to my laptop, I imagine Facebook is also very active at the moment. What an amazing time to witness our government in action. I hope the coming years brings more government use of the internet and social media to connect with the American people. 

Recently I saw a newly elected NY senator telling a TV reporter how she wants to connect with her constituents and how she’s going to Washington to change things. I really liked her message and her openness, but I also wish I could help her understand the internet and social media tools to help her connect with people all the time. I love the town hall type meetings and shaking hands at parades, but she could connect with people via Twitter whenever and wherever possible. The same is true of her website, a blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. 

So far the president has said a lot of good and interesting things. I wish he would also say that the government is opening up and becoming more transparent. I would love to see the President challenge congress to use the internet to connect with people like never before. I doubt that will happen tonight, but I have a feeling it’s coming. 

I want to be social, really…

I came across a podcast the other day that (among other things) mentioned that everyone is unique and has an interesting story to tell, even if we don’t think so. This really struck me because I’ve had lots of trouble engaging on Twitter and Facebook because I don’t think anyone cares what I have to say or what I think, especially people who don’t know me at all. 

I want to be social – I want to interact and have conversations with folks and meet new people and all that good stuff, but my inner belief that no one cares what I have to say is a real problem. 

I’ve slowly been overcoming my shyness (I’ll call it that) by committing to blog every day and to send at least one tweet every day, even if it’s only a retweet. I’m also trying to be more social with my friends on Facebook by leaving comments when I feel like it or posting something interesting for people to look at. 

I know lots of people will find this kind of thing odd. I’ve learned over the years that shyness is often mistaken for arrogance or apathy. Believe me, it’s anything but that. I can think of a million times when I’ve wanted to start or maintain a conversation, but for the life of me cannot think of a thing to say. In analyzing why this keeps happening, I believe (for me) it boils down to my mentality that I don’t have anything to say that people want to hear. 

If I’m going to succeed with Riker Media and in life in general, I’ll have to overcome my shyness. I’m proud to say I’m taking it one day at a time and I’m making progress and that each little victory gives me more confidence to continue on. 

Easter Egg

Here’s a fun little Easter Egg: By entering the airport code for Spaceport America into the “From” field on Kayak.com, and 50m (the number of miles at which the thermosphere starts) into the “To” field, you can uncover flights into space.

This was posted on mashable.com and I thought it was interesting as a possible sign of things to come. Virgin Galactic doesn’t have the spaceships to fulfill these orders yet, but they are working hard to get there. The price for one of these flights is $200,000 – a steal for a little weightless view of this big ball of mud we call home. 
At that price, I think I’ll be staying on the ground and to be honest the idea of a quick ride into space and back isn’t terribly appealing to me. I would love to see either longer orbital flights or perhaps a private venture to put some kind of space station into orbit where people could visit like a giant space hotel. Now that would be awesome and well worth the price.
Thanks to Twitter and TV and the internet I think there are times when I get too caught up in the mundane functions of daily life fed to me from all over the world. Shootings in California, a flood in Australia, political unrest Haiti, etc. Once and a while it’s a nice break to put my brain in neutral and think about a trip to an orbiting hotel, or a spaceflight around the Earth. Being a big Star Trek fan those things don’t seem too far fetched, but I imagine they will be more likely to happen in my kids or grandkids lifetimes more so than in mine. 
It’s still fun to think about and it’s pretty amazing that I could (in theory) book a ticket at a website for a ticket to ride into space. Makes booking a plane ride to anywhere seem pretty boring.

How do people figure this stuff out?

I’ve spent most of the night watching videos on www.irs.gov explaining everything I need to know about getting Riker Media running – at least from a tax perspective. There are definitely some interesting nuggets of information in these videos, but at some points I’m also feeling like my head will explode. How can anyone keep all these rules straight?

Obviously there are lots of people out there who start and run small businesses every day and somehow muddle through this mess. I have to wonder how many people are scared away by the amount of paperwork and rules that must be taken into account. 

I guess this could be a Darwin-type thing – the strong survive and the weak are weeded out. People who have the will to start and succeed in business will, and the rest will fall away. At a time when our economy is shaky and unemployment is fairly high, one has to wonder if less rules and paperwork would help stimulate small business creation? I realize this won’t happen, but it seems like among the other ideas the government considers to stimulate economic growth, easing rules on businesses would be one well worth a look.

Since I live in NY, taxes and laws and regulations that are unfriendly to business are a very sore point. Our new governor says he will be looking into returning NY to greatness by easing harsh regulations and outrageous taxes. We’ve heard such promises before, but little is every delivered. Hopefully Governor Cuomo will be able to deliver some relief so that business can flourish and our children will want to stay and raise their families here some day. 

Searching….

I’ve spent most of the night searching for wordpress themes for rikermedia.com – the new company I’m starting. I swear I have paralysis by analysis right now. It seems  like there are millions of themes out there ranging from simple to complex to cheesy to ultra-professional. I’ve seen a few I like, and many I don’t.

While I’m perfectly capable of building a site from scratch, I just can’t justify the time. To be honest, as we get Riker Media up and running – I’m seriously thinking about being up front and honest with folks and saying that whenever possible we will find a template (wordpress or tumblr or whatever) that fits their needs and customize it from there. 

Having read Tim Ferris’s 4 Hour Work Week several times, I’ve been seriously reevaluating things that should be built scratch, things that can be picked up already built, and things that I should pay someone else to build, all in an effort to focus on what I do best, which is to help people harness technology.

Unfortunately I was raised in an environment where we did everything ourselves and I’ve had a very hard time shaking the feeling that it’s ok to ask for help with things. This extends to all areas of my life from work to house cleaning to laundry. I’m seriously wondering if it’s worth my time to spend 2 hours a week mowing and caring for my lawn when I could pay someone to do it for me while I do other things. 

Of course in a business sense I’m concerned how people will react to me telling them I will first try to find a template for their site, rather then building it from scratch. I’m sure some folks will appreciate my efficiency while others will want their own unique site, unlike any other (if there is such a thing nowadays). 

I just can’t see spending the time and money to custom design every website. I’m sure some work will have to be contracted out, but for the most part I think there enough templates out there that most small businesses will be well satisfied with. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have these deep thoughts so late at night when I’m tired.

What’s wrong with people?

It’s been a week since the horrible shooting in Arizona and it’s been amazing to see how many people have seized the opportunity to advance their agendas or beliefs. 

Of course the gun control folks have made it clear that this wouldn’t have happened if the lunatic couldn’t buy a gun. Political folks are saying political talk has become too caustic and this is an example of the consequences for that escalation. Here in Rochester people held a peaceful demonstration demanding the quieting of political rhetoric. 

While it’s only been a week, the FBI and local Arizona law enforcement continue to tell us that the ‘person’ who committed the crime has no political affiliations or any agenda or any other kind of philosophy that would connect him to any group or ideology. Of course that hasn’t stopped people from trying to make it sound like something that it’s not. 1 mentally ill nut, nothing more, nothing less. 

We’ve heard that the college that kicked him out should have done more, that his parents should have done more, that his mental illness should have been dealt with before it turned violent. I understand that people are always trying to find meaning and seeking ‘closure’ and all that – and I completely respect that. But sometimes bad things happen to nice people and there is no reason that we can understand; it simply happens. I’m sure there are a whole bunch of people in Tuscon asking themselves if they should have done something, questioning themselves and going through the what if’s of this situation. 

I’m sure anyone who encountered this nut would have called the police if they had any idea of what he would eventually do, but it’s not fair to expect people to predict the future or more importantly, human behavior. 

I wish the murder could be punished 1000-fold for his crimes and that he could then rot in hell for all eternity. Of course that won’t happen. Nothing brings back those who perished that day. Maybe politics will change a little, maybe it won’t. Maybe gun laws will change, maybe they won’t. 

I suppose people will always seize opportunities like this to push their beliefs, but at the end of the day this boils down to 1 nut with a gun and it’s unlikely that there was much that could have been done to stop it, no matter what people say.  

I have one too

I have a 9 year old daughter, only a few months older than the little girl that was killed in Arizona over the weekend. This morning I read that her father made her breakfast and then sent her with a neighbor to see our democracy in action. 

I make my daughter breakfast every morning and send on her way to school without much of a thought. I try to always remember to tell the kids I love them and to have a good day at school and then I’m off to work. Pretty much the same thing that happens in lots of houses every morning all over the country. 

It has never occurred to me that one of my kids might not come home at night. Of course I know all the sayings: ‘you never know’, and ‘live every minute like it’s your last’ and all that, but in the flow of every day I must admit I rarely think about it. 

I realize this is just 1 incident, perpetrated by a human waste product, but still it highlights the fact that life can be altered in an instant. 

Like most Americans I’m sickened by what I read about the tragedy in Arizona, but I’m not sure it will change my view of the world any. Maybe I’ll give my kids a hug when I send them off in addition to telling them that I love them. I feel like these kinds of things should alter my behavior and my thinking about life, but I fear it will only cause me to temporarily pause, appreciate how lucky I am, and then move on. 

I hope the my prayers, along with everyone else’s, will matter to the people involved in such an awful event. I also hope I’m smart enough to take a little something away from this whole thing. 

CES Hype

CES is happening this week in California and I wish I could keep track of how many ‘Ipad killers’ are supposedly being introduced so that I can go back a year from now and see how many on the list actually killed the Ipad. I doubt the list would be very long, if there were anything on it at all. 

I suppose trying to kill the Ipad is a worthy business model, but I wonder why no one has the courage to try and create a new innovation, rather than trying to one-up the Ipad. You’d there some small group of eager college students or young people with more dreams than sense would set out to make the next great device. 

Is it possible that Apple has simple demoralized the tech industry to the point the people content to produce devices that are a little better than an Ipad? Making a device more innovative than the Ipad or Iphone or Ipod is a tall order to be sure, but isn’t anyone up to the challenge?  

Or is it possible that Apple has taken tech to the end of the road; that there are no devices better than the Ipad waiting to be born? That’s a scary thought. I see the pull company’s have to closely copy successful devices, but can’t someone, anyone try to create the next great device?

It’s exciting to watch CES and see all the new devices that are coming, but they are largely variations on a theme. It would be great if there was something as exciting as…….well as the Ipad was last year.  

Maybe next year!

Internet Surpasses Television as Main News Source for Young Adults [STUDY]

The Internet is now the main national and international news source for people ages 18 to 29, a study from the Pew Research Center reports.

This headline and first sentence appeared on mashable.com today and I must say it’s not really shocking. Unfortunately I’m not a member of the demographic anymore, but the internet is my main source for news and has been for a while. To be honest, I get all the news I can handle from Twitter and RSS feeds.

As I began to leave newspapers and TV behind, I found that my biggest concern was getting reliable news. Let’s face it – anyone with a smartphone and internet access can post ‘news’ but I had a big issue at first with reliability. I chose the people and sources I follow on Twitter carefully as there are clearly reporters and newspeople who get it, and those who do not. 

Now that I’m fully immersed in the internet news culture, I really don’t understand how people can wait for the 6pm news or the morning newspaper. Being on top of the news cycle locally and nationally has caused some interesting conversations with my friends and family who still rely on traditional media. I often want to discuss a news event that they haven’t even heard about yet and in some cases won’t hear about until the next day when they wander out to get the paper. At times I find myself not willing to discuss something I just saw on Twitter because I don’t want to have to explain (again) how I heard it and how I can be sure it’s true. 

And of course this also leads to the inevitable problem of information overload. There are times when I really don’t want to hear about a car accident in Texas or a murder in Oakland. I’ve gotten better at filtering out the folks I follow on Twitter, but there are still times when I see a tweet that makes me feel like I’m getting too much information. 

Earlier this evening I was watching a show on PBS about the Civil War. They were explaining how different battles unfolded and how things worked. It’s almost unimaginable today to think that it could take a week for the President to hear the outcome of a battle 200 miles away. I wonder what General Lee would thing about Twitter!

While this headline is hardly news, it’s interesting to me because I’m right in the middle of all this. I didn’t grow up on the internet like my kids will, but I’m not so stubborn that I can’t let go of the newspaper and TV news either. While I do enjoy my digital news, some Sunday mornings I enjoy reading the sports page while I eat my eggs and watch the Sunday news programs. 

Resolutions

It’s only January 3rd and I’m already sick of hearing about resolutions for the new year! That being said, I have decided to redouble my efforts in a couple area’s and I’m hoping if I put it out here for the digital universe to see, maybe I’ll be shamed into action. 

So my goals for 2011 are pretty simple:

• Post to my blog on a regular basis and beef up this site
• Get manvsflab.com up and running
• Continue to expand my social interactions both on and offline
• Tweet on a regular basis 

Seems pretty simple. I gather some momentum as 2010 came to a close. I started generating some traffic on oneminutewingman.com and I began to post tweets more often. I also started following more people on Twitter, hoping to reach out to different niche’s to expand my horizon’s. I’ve been slowly learning what it means to be social in a digital sense. 

So there it is – on the internet for all time. Maybe 30 years from now my kids will read this – hopefully they won’t laugh to hard!