Author: BrianR

I'm voting for Sally Greene

This first thing that come to my mind when I think of Sally Greene’s record as a council person is her work to end homelessness. She has done a lot of real work towards solving this problem.

Homelessness isn’t a easy issue. Nor one that could easily win you votes. So to have done real work on this issue, as a politician, is impressive. For me this really demonstrates how much Sally really cares about people.

Sally is on the steering committee for the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness and was instrumental in the creation of the 10-year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. She has steadfastly opposed efforts to regulate panhandling in Chapel Hill. Too many people think banning so called undesirable people from Franklin Street will make a real difference. At best all it does is brush a problem and people under a rug.

Few elected officials are looking at the root causes that put people onto the streets. Even fewer are working towards real creative solutions. The causes of homelessness are extremely complicated and deserves a detailed response. Sally does this in a real way with real results.

I’m also impressed with how Sally works with her fellow council members. She asks good questions at council meetings. Its obvious she has spent time building the trust of her fellow council members. Her professional style is worthy of respect. This is the job we elected her to do and she does it well.

The next four years we will need Sally’s experience getting effective policies passed. She is trusted, intelligent, and progressive. So when you go to the voting booth this november think about the people who share your values. But vote for the candidates that have the ability to create policy that will see your values made real.

Chapel Hill Startup Weekend

Last night I met Gwen Bell. She told me about an event she’s organizing called Startup Weekend. She was part of the group that first pulled it off it Denver. Now its coming to Chapel Hill on November 2-4.

http://chapelhill.startupweekend.com

Startup Weekend is an idea, an experiment, a chance gather the tech community and create a company over one jam packed weekend.

We held a session about this at the last RDUBar Camp. It sounds like super geek fun!

Update: Here is some more info from Gwen Bell describing just what Startup Weekend is.
Continue reading “Chapel Hill Startup Weekend” →

Five Aspects of Effective Networks

Check out these Five Aspects of Effective Networks from Marty Kearns.

  • Social Ties
  • Common Story
  • Dense Communication Grid
  • Shared Resources
  • Clarity of Purpose

Marty fleshes out the 5 here.

How do I learn about this stuff? Fortunately I’m married to one of the foremost experts in this field, Ruby Sinreich. She’s a network centric advocacy innovator. I owe her a lot. Ruby has a great slide show about this here. Also check out Ruby’s Network-centric reading list.

Now what I’m going to do is translate these ideas, and others, to fit within unique business environments. Some of it is semantics and other parts are cultural. I’m still WAY interested in how positive social change can be brought about with network centric advocacy. But I’m also interested in how we can raise the social responsibility of businesses by developing social networking evironments. I think a big part of this is how people interact with each other online and offline. When people are highly connected they SEE each other as real humans instead of abstract numbers. I believe this can really effect the financial bottom line of any organization.

Social Network Software for Enterprise

Ed Cone has a great article on CIO Insight called Social Networks at Work Promise Bottom-Line Results. Its really got me thinking about the adoption of social network software by companies of all sizes.

Interesting synergy that I found this. I’m consulting companies about social software right now plus I’m checking out Microsoft’s Sharepoint. Wachovia is deploying it for all its employees. Its a Windows Server addon that creates a social network for business Intranets. Its got calendars, file sharing, blogs, etc. Nothing new to the web but rather new to the insides of corporations.

This has me wondering, what enterprise level social software is out there? I’m especially interested in stuff built to run with LAMP. (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) I think Drupal + CiviCRM could be one. But I’m not sure that combo has the interface that a big business wants. It would be great for small businesses, non-profits, and other organizations. I wonder what the largest user base of any Drupal install is?

I must mention activeCollab and Basecamp. Two very useable pieces of social software that are mainly hosted solutions. While I’m at it I gota mention Salesforce. TONS of businesses are using that now. Plus it appears to have a strong API and dev community. But these have a more CRM functionality. But they could act as online social hangouts. Ruby reminds me that there is a lot of software that can be used in social ways even though it wasn’t intended to.

Right now I’m checking out a bunch of other apps like Dolphin, Grabgrass, Drupal, etc. These aren’t necessarily right for big businesses but who knows… Have any other suggestions? Big or small?

When I was a AVID editor’s assistant in LA I went to a event where the famous film editor Gabriella Cristiani was speaking. She won an Oscar in 1988 for editing the Bertolucci film The Last Emperor. She spoke about the art of editing film. Not once did she mention software. But mentioned she gave lessons in editing. At the end I asked her which editing software she used. She told me it didn’t really matter which application I used. Good editing was good editing no matter which tool you used. That advice has stuck with me. At the time I was convinced I had to be a master AVID editor to make a living.

I think this good advice about tools can be applied to social software. We can build communities and leverage the advantages of the strong connections built no matter what software tools we use. True some practical considerations come into play and effect our choices. But I plan on remembering what Ms. Cristiani said when I advise people about what to choose. Each group has unique needs. I plan on serving them in unique ways each time. We’ll build what is best for the group at that time.

Radiohead MP3s Tomorrow

I decided to pay £10 for the new Radiohead album IN RAINBOWS the other day. It was a pay what you want deal online. I just got an email saying that the files will be available for download tomorrow.

HERE IS SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE DOWNLOAD:

THE ALBUM WILL COME AS A 48.4MB ZIP FILE CONTAINING 10 X 160KBPS DRM FREE MP3s.

Before I purchased these files I was wondering what file format they would be in. The website said nothing about that to my recollection. Would have been nice to see them in a uncompressed format like Flac. How about releasing multi track recordings for remix under a Creative Commons licensee? Not to steal but to extend the commons of free information.

Take the next step Radiohead. Oh and thanks for this first step. Looking forward to the album.

7 Principles of Community Building

The social media for business blog Now is Gone has a damn cool post by Geoff Livingston called The Seven Principles of Community Building. Nice to see this codified. Bloggers live much of this by instinct. This is GREAT advice.

1) Do not try to control the message

2) Honesty, ethics and transparencies are musts

3) Participation within the community is marketing (Heuer)

4) Communication to audiences is an out-dated 20th century concept (Rosen)

5) Build value for the community

6) Inspire your community with real, exciting information, not corporate propaganda

7) Intelligently manage your media forms (RSS, frequency, etc.) to build a stronger, loyal community

Thanks to Jim Tobin at Ignite Social Media for sharing this URL.

YOU determine Radiohead's Album Cost

The NYTimes is reporting that Radiohead’s upcoming album “In Rainbows” will be available for download Oct. 10. Only the entire album, in non DRM audio files, will be available for download. At the same time they are selling a box of vynl, cds, etc from their website.

Nothing new here ‘cept they will, “allow fans to decide how much to pay for it, if anything.” WOW.

I think this amazing. Not because I could get this bands music for free. Been there done that. Yawn… But because a major famous ‘recording artist’ is making a move AWAY from the middle man, aka record labels.

We all know how often the middle man rips off creative people. (not every time mind you) Oh yeah they give you money but do you really get what your creativity is truly worth from them? Can you own all of your intellectual property and its entire set of rights? What about creating personal relationships with fans? Record labels don’t foster that at all. Not in a sustainable or healthy way.

I got involved in the web and learned HTML to help artists promote themselves. Now many years latter we see our famous creative brothers are helping to remove the shackles. Radiohead may not be as altruistic as I. They may actually be able to make more money with this method of distribution. Perhaps the street creed and good PR will sell more record company produced CDs later. Regardless I hope they succeed so other artists will be inspired to remove the middle man!

Orange Networking is a real 501c3

Last night I opened an envelope from the IRS. In it was Orange Networking’s acceptance letter giving the organization official tax exempt status. Orange Networking is now a real 501(c)(3) organization! YEAH!

Orange Networking (ON) is a non-profit organization working to foster equal access to the Internet so that all people may benefit from the use of digital communication tools. ON shall provide support to people who live or work in Orange County, North Carolina in the use of open, safe, and accessible computer networks.