In the beginning, there was porn-based innovation; now there is gambling-based innovation; what will be the next innovation? What is left? Porn built the Internet's body, now Gambling is building the mind. Thank god for sin and vice.
Well, what I am afraid of is when "Cluetrain" consultants come in, mess around with the energy of an organization, and then leave, with everybody holding their respective penses in their hand.
I have seen the same thing happen with teaming where the hierarchical system is replace with a teaming environment and then there is not training and follow through -- also with other forms of Orgainizational Development (OD) -- these consultants are expensive and they might not all be Clued themselves.
I would hate to be in a company that is being Clued by force with out training, without the concept being sold, and with no followthrough.
I think the secret to the revolution to work is to fool the soft white fleshy oppressor that you are doing him a favor by flaying him and cooking his fatty flesh.
I think this is not about making us geeks feel happy, its about "Clueing" the powers that be.
The book basically takes a few central themes and repeats them over and over again, finding about 100 different ways to say the same thing.
Well, in memetics as well as in advertising and psychology and teaching, it is well known that the best way to learn is to have that thing that is being introduced to your mind repeated and repeated and repeated. It was what taught you when you were two (Barney again mom) and it codes you now. They were savvy here... besides, Middle-Managers aren't the swiftest, either.
To make things worse, most of its points are obvious to anybody who has been on the internet for a while and they do come to some fundamentally wrong conclusions.
True. Its the DUH factor. Most of the best companies, the most powerful Schools of Art and the most amazing trend-setting dogmas and ideas were totally duh (with the added forehead slap with the palm). Most great modern art has been referred to the same way. Besides, we are the choir and since its obvious to you does not mean its obvious to Joe and Jane CEO in Middle America.
I am reading the book and have the same kind of knee jerk reaction to its text as I do when reading most utopian texts. Not because I don't love the ideas -- I do, in fact I adore the wit, candor, and brilliance (the duh factor) of the words and ideas that can in fact help out American e-conomy -- but I would hate these ideas to firestorm through like flashpaper, the result being YAMMBI (Yet Another Middle-Management Bright Idea). I wanted to know if this dogmatic opinionated treatise that will excite atoms and then stall... a few steps too early for true e-volution.
I really cannot find enough forum to really discuss the true nature of The Cluetrain Manifesto outside the limited confines of the Middle-Management Memespace (that little area wherein all the buzz finds it namespace -- the library of code, mostly written by the Harvard Business School Press) areas on this or that BBS.
Que Pasa is a culture of discourse in much the same way that Ca Va is not Whatshappenin. Okay, if they were similar looking, there might be a struggle here, but the Que Pasa site is so completely superior to the whats happenin site that it would be terribly insulting to me if I were accused of being anything like whatsheppenin.
Besides, it is a Spanish language site, wherein the vid clip of the reactions over Jennifer Lopez' dress were all in Spanish.
I am the host of MemeSpace, and online community of Memeticist and other people who realize the ubiquitous presence of Memes as contagion
When I first began the discussion, I was not even really sure that memetics was the right thing to call this popularly-held concept of what we are talking about here: censorship and the filtering of ideas, knowledge, and programming.
Now I am not so sure.
We have not discussed censorship very much (if you would like to start a thread, be my guest) but we have discussed the power of the word and the responsibility to it we must have (or not have), and we have realized that the power of the meme comes with both was is transmitted and what is not.
The power is both in the transmission as well as the restriction of the idea. The barring, filtering, or censuring of the idea is as powerful as is the sharing.
We have steadily realised that it is possible to kill a meme but it is not easy -- and in just the same way that a man's singleminded desire to become immortal through his memory can backfire and result in a self-destruct, the attempt to kill a meme -- idea, image, or the PoMo text -- can result in a more virulent idea altogether!
I agree. Its a free for all and was it better for them to cover up the objectionables or what? Is there a right or wrong here or is it merely a less onerous way of placing banner ads in a way besides the manner that sporting events do now?
We are sold the news and the event, not the environment.
Who watches the big three news anyway? Can you say PBS? Can you say NPR? Can you say Slashdot?
I would love to find a case that was as modular and easy to open and upgrade as the PowerMac's cases. The build quality is there, the Powersupply is great, the bays are accessible. All I want to find is a case with a powerful power supply, plenty of room, lots of breathing space, plenty of air flow and the number one point: I don't want to get my knuckles torn up. No blood.
I jumped from the Apple Mac environment when I fell in love with command line. And since SA and Support jobs here in DC were drying up.
Not because I don't like Macs.
But I was not going to go to Wintel, so I knoew Unix command line and there you go -- Linux.
Now I would like to find an easy way to get a tall case with a 350-400Watt Power Supply and a good finish. The outside is less important to me.
I am a geek. My girlfriend is Martha Stewart. She is always baiting me to buy her the coolest cookwares by showing how cool the best gear is so we have loads of sharp knives and whatnot.
I can finally make the dinner parties mine own! I am the ambiant lighting technician here during the dinner parties and like to make the light low, but with the Bioluminescent H2O, I can light the dinner table from the table itself.
I will be able to show off my geek prowess while my girlfriend might be able to have not only the best food for dinner but the most novel approach -- a true way to best Martha Stewart.
I wonder if she'll be up for it or would this have to be beta-tested with just some of my co-workers? I guess its not a good thing to test it with the Parish Priest.
I worked for a DC-based tech support company and worked at a VA-based help desk for quite a while and whereas children are trying to learn, eager to fill their empty brains with things that will serve them well, mt clients were just not thinking at all -- they knew there was a support person so they just didn't do any of the work for themselves and then come to me when it became ubearable.
Before the comics there were the email and USENET postings about the guy calling in about his cup holder (cdrom tray) and the mouse on the screen and the any key.
One should look at it as the vaudeville of the 21st century -- we can laugh at ourselves and our incompetant and primadonna users as well -- but we hold back all the best wrath for our ignorant and uninspired executives.
Who champions the Execs? They are more like children than anyone else!
Slashdot Mirror
In the beginning, there was porn-based innovation; now there is gambling-based innovation; what will be the next innovation? What is left? Porn built the Internet's body, now Gambling is building the mind. Thank god for sin and vice.
Well, maybe owning a car that can go as fast as mine isn't a good idea if the black box could rat me out.
There was a radio story on NPR about Edward Tufte over the weekend, if you haven't listened to it yet.
I host MemeSpace which is a small community at and I know Howard and he has done more for the VC than any one person I know.
I am a proponent of Open Source and so my VC is Open, free and easy. Thanks Mr. Katz for your amazing words!
Oppression: a haiku
The Man keeps me down!
But wait, I am the Man.
Ah, a paradox.
©1999 Mark Harrison
Check it out if you like. We try to explore the Memetics shrapnel of these ideas. Their complexities and outlying influence.
I personally am surprised there is not an alt.cluetrain newsgroup on usenet.
I have seen the same thing happen with teaming where the hierarchical system is replace with a teaming environment and then there is not training and follow through -- also with other forms of Orgainizational Development (OD) -- these consultants are expensive and they might not all be Clued themselves.
I would hate to be in a company that is being Clued by force with out training, without the concept being sold, and with no followthrough.
I think this is not about making us geeks feel happy, its about "Clueing" the powers that be.
Here is a favorite poem my friend Mark Harrison that is on Coelaboration:
Oppression: a haiku
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Man keeps me down!
But wait, I am the Man.
Ah, a paradox.
The book basically takes a few central themes and repeats them over and over again, finding about 100 different ways to say the same thing.
Well, in memetics as well as in advertising and psychology and teaching, it is well known that the best way to learn is to have that thing that is being introduced to your mind repeated and repeated and repeated. It was what taught you when you were two (Barney again mom) and it codes you now. They were savvy here... besides, Middle-Managers aren't the swiftest, either.
To make things worse, most of its points are obvious to anybody who has been on the internet for a while and they do come to some fundamentally wrong conclusions.
True. Its the DUH factor. Most of the best companies, the most powerful Schools of Art and the most amazing trend-setting dogmas and ideas were totally duh (with the added forehead slap with the palm). Most great modern art has been referred to the same way. Besides, we are the choir and since its obvious to you does not mean its obvious to Joe and Jane CEO in Middle America.
I really cannot find enough forum to really discuss the true nature of The Cluetrain Manifesto outside the limited confines of the Middle-Management Memespace (that little area wherein all the buzz finds it namespace -- the library of code, mostly written by the Harvard Business School Press) areas on this or that BBS.
There is a really cool Mailing List but I started an Online Discussion for The Cluetrain Manifesto on the MemeSpace virtual communtiy called The Cluetrain Conference.
Besides, it is a Spanish language site, wherein the vid clip of the reactions over Jennifer Lopez' dress were all in Spanish.
Did someone say that quepasa.com settled?
When I first began the discussion, I was not even really sure that memetics was the right thing to call this popularly-held concept of what we are talking about here: censorship and the filtering of ideas, knowledge, and programming.
Now I am not so sure.
We have not discussed censorship very much (if you would like to start a thread, be my guest) but we have discussed the power of the word and the responsibility to it we must have (or not have), and we have realized that the power of the meme comes with both was is transmitted and what is not.
The power is both in the transmission as well as the restriction of the idea. The barring, filtering, or censuring of the idea is as powerful as is the sharing.
We have steadily realised that it is possible to kill a meme but it is not easy -- and in just the same way that a man's singleminded desire to become immortal through his memory can backfire and result in a self-destruct, the attempt to kill a meme -- idea, image, or the PoMo text -- can result in a more virulent idea altogether!
I agree. Its a free for all and was it better for them to cover up the objectionables or what? Is there a right or wrong here or is it merely a less onerous way of placing banner ads in a way besides the manner that sporting events do now?
We are sold the news and the event, not the environment.
Who watches the big three news anyway? Can you say PBS? Can you say NPR? Can you say Slashdot?
I would love to find a case that was as modular and easy to open and upgrade as the PowerMac's cases. The build quality is there, the Powersupply is great, the bays are accessible. All I want to find is a case with a powerful power supply, plenty of room, lots of breathing space, plenty of air flow and the number one point: I don't want to get my knuckles torn up. No blood.
I jumped from the Apple Mac environment when I fell in love with command line. And since SA and Support jobs here in DC were drying up.
Not because I don't like Macs.
But I was not going to go to Wintel, so I knoew Unix command line and there you go -- Linux.
Now I would like to find an easy way to get a tall case with a 350-400Watt Power Supply and a good finish. The outside is less important to me.
I can finally make the dinner parties mine own! I am the ambiant lighting technician here during the dinner parties and like to make the light low, but with the Bioluminescent H2O, I can light the dinner table from the table itself.
I will be able to show off my geek prowess while my girlfriend might be able to have not only the best food for dinner but the most novel approach -- a true way to best Martha Stewart.
I wonder if she'll be up for it or would this have to be beta-tested with just some of my co-workers? I guess its not a good thing to test it with the Parish Priest.
Before the comics there were the email and USENET postings about the guy calling in about his cup holder (cdrom tray) and the mouse on the screen and the any key.
One should look at it as the vaudeville of the 21st century -- we can laugh at ourselves and our incompetant and primadonna users as well -- but we hold back all the best wrath for our ignorant and uninspired executives.
Who champions the Execs? They are more like children than anyone else!
... and since *everybody* misspells it -- then, there you go!
I have a friend at Sun who told me they had to "eat their own dog food" and use Applix in their offices.
He hated it! I am trying to find the perfect application for my Red Hat system and I have decided thus far to go with Wordperfect.
Why did my friend hate Applix and what is wrong (or right) with Star Office or Wordperfect (aside from the latter not being a Suite.)
Hi... Link me to the best space to get one of these apparently fly boards, SVP...
Do you have any URLs for these kinds of dual Processor MBs?