Archive for July, 2008

Tonight I told a friend how Twitter can be lovely company when you’re alone and bored. That it’s a nice place for the sharing of simple joys and concerns.

Though I’m agnostic, I grew up in a strong, compassionate church community (Congregationalist) in Connecticut that I still feel connected to. A ritual part of church was the weekly sharing of joys and concerns. A simple book lay at the entry to the church. Anyone could add a line, and their words were read for all to hear.

This simple, ordinary sharing of joys and concerns is one of the tremendous human strengths of Twitter and microsharing in general. Both can inspire, especially when the concerns are outside ourselves — not self-indulgent, but concerns for others and for the changes that we can make in the world.

Some mistake “social media” for something “new.” But the most compelling truths I notice in this space are simple ones that echo furthest back in human experience. Humans gather. They share joys and concerns. They hope for one another and try to create better things.

Compelling platforms set conditions for people to replicate these in a natural, accessible way. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that it’s the software.

Twitter Brand Index « Fluent Simplicity. This is an incredibly useful idea. I can’t count the number of times I’ve needed an “at-a-glance” list of businesses, etc., using Twitter, especially to refer journalists and other interviewers too.

(Via @CherylSmith999.)

This is such a great use of Twitter for promotion at events. HP is running a Twitter-powered scavenger hunt here at BlogHer with product giveaways including webcams and even laptops.

At their booth is a small slip of paper with simple instructions on how to sign up for Twitter (and several live laptops people can use to do so) and how to follow their special account @HP_BlogHer2008 for the clues and challenges.

Very cool.

Excited to be heading out to the Bay Area tomorrow for BlogHer, to meet some really amazing people around the area and to reconnect with friends. I’d really love the chance to meet you while I’m there. Here are some of the fun things going on. I hope you’ll consider saying hi.

(”Tweet-up” just means we’ll use Twitter to coordinate getting together for fun and networking. These are public events and all are welcome. RSVP at the links provided, or for HMB Ritz, just show up. Thanks!)

Friday & Saturday, July 18-19
San Francisco: BlogHer08 at the Westin St. Francis hotel. Very happy to meet this strong community of women bloggers to listen and learn.

Sunday, July 20
StartupDrinks SF 2-4 PM at the Medjool rooftop deck. Come support startup culture through this really fun decentralized networking phenom started by my buddy Andrew Hyde. RSVP and more information here.

Monday, July 21
Palo Alto Tweet-up: Breakfast in Palo Alto Joanie’s Cafe, 8 am. Yeah, it’s early but that will only make it more intimate. Please come wish Erica Douglass a HAPPY birthday. RSVP here
San Mateo Tweet-up: After Work Drinks at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse. 5:30-7:30 pm. Sponsored in part by www.Qik.com (THANKS Bhaskar!) RSVP here

Tuesday, July 22
Half Moon Bay Tweet-up: Cocktails with Kathy Sierra, Robert Scoble, Francine Hardaway, JJ Toothman and YOU at the Half Moon Bay Ritz fire-ring by the ocean, 5:45 pm. (no RSVP link yet, just show up.)

Thursday, July 24
San Francisco Tweet-up: Coffee at Citizen Space, 9-11 am. I can’t wait to see Citizen Space, which is SF’s own entrant into the co-working revolution. Huge thanks to my friend and hero Tara Hunt for letting us all use the venue to meet and greet. RSVP here

This was just one of those perfect moments on Twitter. You might like these tips for getting kids to eat salads. You might wonder why I posted this here and not on the more experimental www.Bransieve.com. It’s to demonstrate what a fast and powerful problem-solving tool microsharing can be when you have a unique business process question or need some really specific expertise — fast.

My daughters “S” and “Z” are nearly-3 and 20 months, in turn. I had some iceberg lettuce and the ambition to try them on their first salad. I wrote:

wankergirl Cover it in chocolate sauce!

megfowler
do they like fruit? savoury-sweet salads work well with that age group. lots of juice in dressing, fruit in actual salad.

branchero just don’t use a dressing that’s really sour (like Italian)

TheJennTaFur my Mom put slices of fruit in my salad such as slices of apple or grapes. I loved it with French dressing. Hope this helps!

rahafharfoush you can make it into a person. http://tinyurl.com/66f9xe

JamiInMiami I added craisins and they ate it. Now Girl likes salad & she’s a tween.

MikeG1 : Try offering ingredients separately; I’ve got a couple who love cucumber slices. It’s a start.

Penguin Make it sweet? Add some fruits, apples, mandarin oranges, pears.

akaMonty I just put it on the plate with the other food in smaller portions. I don’t think my daughter ever noticed the difference.

KevinEikenberry and pray… I think your steps are good ones for the salad - what about raisons too?

lalatina ~ cottage cheese, mandarin oranges?

akaMonty Only I didn’t chop it fine, I made it more of a “dipping” style & kept the dressing separate.

ericrank Emeril once said “If you want kids to eat vegs, you have to make them taste good” - For my toddler, that means sweet or cheesy.

The twurl.nl link let other Twitterers see my most recent replies at the time (the tweets you see in this post).

depapel and all of that in seven minutes: that is also incredible.

geekgiant I’d try making “fun salads.” Spinach, sliced strawberries, blueberries,
candied walnuts, feta and a balsamic vinagerette perhaps?

podcastmama Offer diff. bite size veg or fruit, and let *her* make the salad by
tossing in the things she likes. Let us know what she picks:)

hkremer not salad related but have you seen the “new” rice puffs by Pirate’s
Booty? look in the organic section - DS calls them popcorn

hkremer see previous tweet - white cheddar flavored yummy!

pauladrum Great question (toddlers and salads). Got a lot of ideas for my little one. Another thought… Let them help make it.

knackeredhack I hear that if you make a child try a small amount of the same thing 10 days in a row they’ll acquire the taste.

JamiInMiami finished it up with this Tweet…

JamiInMiami and people still question the power of the Twitter. Ha!

PS - We went with chopped iceberg lettuce, olive oil, salt & pepper, a dash of orange juice, and lots of pistachios and carrot bits. No dice, but at least they tried it. And mommy had a yummy crunchy dinner.

There’s a WHOLE lot going on behind this here green curtain, and multiple announcements on the way in the next few weeks and months.

Sorry I’m not being very transparent about it at the moment. I promise all will be revealed, including this here blog in a whole new form that lets you choose whether you want to follow along on presentations stuff or on social media stuff as my work continues to shift going forward.

In the meanwhile, lavish thanks for your continued interest, and a promise to get back to more, and more consistent, content output in the near future…

Much love,
Pistachio

Fascinated by the complexity captured in this map:

PresidentialWatch08 » Map

The circles represent political sites and blogs, color coded by category (political lean) and sized by authority (# of inbound links) or the magnitude of unrelated sites linking to it. This Map Key explains the methodology in detail.

The PresidentialWatch08 map is composed of the 533 most visible and influential websites and blogs - out of a complete dataset of over 4000 sites - using Linkfluence™’s proprietary crawl technology.

The map includes both social media and mainstream media outlets. The sites are divided into four different categories, or communities (manually labelled):

* Conservative
* Independent
* Infopit
* Progressive

Infopit are conversation starters, they can set the agenda. Most of them are mainstream media but a growing part is composed by social media.

Good information design should immediately give you an overall impression — in this case the balance, alignment and complexity of the political blogosphere — at first glance. Otherwise, the mass of data with no organizing principles or trends emerging obscures the information you’re trying to display.

In this case the model is not wholly self-explanatory, but once you dig in and see what they’re representing, I think it’s worth the energy it takes to parse it. If you’re still scratching your head after reading the Map Key, try this “notice” as well.

Unfortunately, I lost track of whose blog I found this on. Sorry!