Pistachio Consulting Inc.

This blog is link in the previous post, but their page on the cyclone is worth its own post, particularly for the map detail (which originated from Mizzima)

Cyclone Nargis « Rule of Lords

So the provocative question that Christopher Penn asked is this, can a boat from India get into any of the ports near the hardest hit areas? Were shipping facilities there also destroyed? How creative can we get?

Image via WikipediaOn Twitter, Friday, I admitted: I’ve been shamefully, intentionally, avoiding news about the cyclone in *Burma/Myanmar. It’s much worse than I’d imagined.

• @digitalmaverick yeah. pop 53 million. 1.5 million affected/endangered. 60,000 “officially” dead. Junta seizing supplies/barring aid workers
  
• Wall Street Journal article about the hope that at least this disaster could begin the end of the oppressive Junta regime.
• Will there be calls for an invasion?
• some social media context: Myanmar crackdown on bloggers

THE best idea I heard in 2007 was from Hans Rosling: approach international strife by connecting, one-to-one, with individual people outside our own cultures. Seek to better understand complexities behind the problems.

So I asked: Has anyone been able to find bloggers or other individuals in Myanmar who are getting word out from the ground?

Please subscribe to at least one of the information sources below and share them widely. (Twitter replies, Google and comments on this draft post turned up the following:)

FEEDS/TWITTER:
• @mmblogs is twittering links to Myanmar bloggers’ posts. (thanks @admore)
• @marshallk scraped this feed of Myanmar bloggers’ voices and also posted a widget (and code) in this post

BLOGGERS & DIRECTORIES:
• Rule of Law (tip: @stales)
• Rule of Law on Cyclone Nargis (LOTS of resources and a detailed map here)
• Global Voices Online
• Read this blogger who will be headed into the region shortly. She blogs on the Our World Community Ning group (tip: @jefdee)
• Myanmar Blog Directory
• Sharbar: Myanmar Blog Directory

NEWS SITES:
• Mizzima
• Irrawady
• Democratic Voice of Burma
• Here is an update from the Doctors without Borders Website

What can be done?
Not much. The junta government is seizing aid supplies and turning back relief workers at the borders. That government is itself extremely wealthy from Natural Gas sales to Thailand.

• Follow Relief Web information and Nargis updates
• Asian Human Rights Commission Nargis updates

Given this lack of obvious meaningful actions, can we as individuals commit to connecting, listening and spreading the stories of the people living this on the ground? You never know who will come up with a solution, or when or how. We can care. We can think.

There are numerous attempts to get $$ aid directly to groups within the country:

• @abbielundberg shares a moveon.org link to a group sending donations to monks inside Burma
• @queenofspain notes that BlogHer/GlobalGiving Mother’s Day initiative includes some cyclone relief projects http://tinyurl.com/6oksuk
• Vicky (see comments) shares that Music for Relief will be donating directly to World Vision, which is already working in the country.
• @eve11’s Burmese friend and artist O_____ heads back into the country on Tuesday, May 20th and will bring with him whatever he can to help. Evelyn set up this chipin to support him.
• @eve11 @pissyrabbit and @true are organizing an ETSY auction of O____’s art.

Art by Burmese artist O____ will be auctioned on ETSY.com to support his personal efforts to provide relief. You can also Chip-In to help him help others here.
Direct action:
1. Take the news “a little at a time.” Add at least one of the news sites, blogs or feeds into your feed reader.
2. Speak up. Blog, tweet, re-tweet, podast, email, speak about and share/bookmark links to things you read that move you, and encourage others to do the same and think creatively about the problems.
3. Do you have a podcast? Please run these free PSAs created by the Voice Actors Guild.

Meta-Discussion (from my Tweets):
I’ll collect and post as many links as I can find later on. Sorry for the sudden burst, compensating for my guilt at hiding from the story… Ignorance is a stunning and embarrassing luxury of our overwhelmingly secure lives… “I know the whole truth there is horrible. It’s better if you take a little at a time.” (John Gorka) …@goldiekatsu is so wise, & points out that our secure lives can also provide the knowledge, time and resources to think about/help elsewhere

Background

• @jeffbundy thx 4 @katrinskaya’s www.mobileactive.org snippet that 1in1000 there have mobiles. that’s still a lot for exchanging news/word/ideas
  
• “In Search of George Orwell”, by Emma Larkin
• @profy posts with some historical context on blogger crackdowns
  

*Debate on the name:

• Calling the nation Burma vs Myanmar is debated. I don’t even know that much about it, to know which name is in the people’s interests. Apparently, I’m not the only one.
• @fourlittlebees reports that a relative from the country is stunned that others refuse to call it Myanmar, which they have used for decades.
• @twalk and @jefdee note that Burma is preferred. TWalk: “James Fallows has studied this at length, & he favors “Burma”" (which=anti-junta)
• Wikipedia entry
• James Fallows’ case for “Burma” at The Atlantic is here

UPDATED 5/10/2008: 1) Continued to organize the raw material. 2) Added resources from the comments. 3) Stripped out names because the Myanmar government reportedly uses Google to ID and persecute citizens that speak out against them, and curtail the rights of journalists. 4) Added the News links courtesy of Zemanta.

NEWS LINKS:

Who’d have thought this blog would ever concern itself with “breaking news?” Certainly not me. But BusinessWeek Senior Writer Stephen Baker is currently using Twitter to write an article about Twitter.

Using the #hashtags convention, you can follow @stevebaker’s Tweets and the ensuing pan-Twitter conversation in any number of ways. You can also follow the discussion at Twemes or Hashtags.org or using a plain old Twitter search tool like Summize, Terraminds or Tweetscan. My client NewsGator built the widget that is below.

Social media tools can help you rock out the next event you attend. Some general ideas to get you started (add your tips in the comments)…

Know the Territory
See if anyone has set up an RSS compilation (such as Grazr) app. to compile event related news, participant blog posts, into a single stream. Spend some time with the event’s website itself, to review schedule, tips, attendees, etc. extra handy if the site has any RSS feeds.

Take a look at who else is going, per Facebook page, event website, etc. You might actually send some polite notes/connection requests (describe similarities, relevance or something to do with their interests) to those you hope to see at the event. Events are a flurry of activity and attention. If you have specific questions, contact the individual/s in advance so that you’re not surprising them. Try to see meeting someone from their side and keep it respectful, engaging and mutually beneficial. You’re at your best when connecting to and sharing with humans, not pitching.

Ask your friends if there is anyone in particular that you “really should meet” at the event. (note: this should be meet for a reason: something in common, etc., not meet because they’re famous or you want to extract something from them etc.). Tune in to who else is going and see if you can be helpful. Not sycophantic, just helpful. Just before Leweb3 I learned on Twitter that a friend of a friend needed an iPhone brought to France. I live near an Apple store. I was more than happy to help.

Listen!
Keep an eye on streams of commentary/community such as Twitter. Try to follow/connect mutually with folks who will be attending that you might like to meet. Subscribe (follow them or use RSS from their profile pages) to the feeds of others who will be there, so you can see at a glance what is going on as the event unfolds. You can go to www.summize.com or www.terraminds.com, search for a term or keyword (like the conference name) and then subscribe to an RSS feed of those search results. Often the event will also have a twitter feed or keyword tags (like hash tags) to use in compiling event-related tweets. Most of this advice also applies to blog search, general search and more.

UPDATE: Very easy and efficient way to listen: go to @eventtrack, find your event, click and/or subscribe to follow along.

Speak up!
Blog about it: post that you are going and a little bit about your interests in the conference. You may get the opportunity to meet blog readers, followers, friends of friends, etc. You can also use Twitter or your blog (or social networks. or all of the above.) to ask: Who else is going? What is going on? Who wants to connect?

Go With the Flow
The best advice came from @shelisrael: go with the flow. Your plans will change. Synchronicity and serendipity will send opportunities your way. Don’t be so tied to plans that you can’t experience them fully. Don’t be afraid to invoke the “law of two feet,” that is, to move on if you are not deriving value. Try another session or hallway conversation or social group instead.

Populate your Village
Don’t just grab (and foist) business cards, find ways to loosely connect with the people you meet going forward. Leave doors open or ajar. Use a presence application or a social network to allow the contact to gradually become more known to you and to get to know you better. Read each other’s blogs, share ideas, allow the relationship to emerge organically instead of confining it to a contact management dead-end. This practice of gradually getting to know people and preserving an open line of communication is what inspired Twitter is my Village. Find a metaphor and platform that works for you.

I’ll post later this week with a follow-up on better meeting and connecting with people at events.

I don’t usually play at meme tag games. In fact, this one took me months to comply to. In the meanwhile Jane Quigley also tagged me, so this is really overdue.

Because, and only because it was Maggie Fox what did it, and because she tagged me in Such. Good. Company. I’m making an exception this one time. So here’re some weird things about me that you might not know. Whether you actually care is a different story altogether, but it can’t hurt to have a little fun.

1. Favorite adventure: hitchhiking around Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland in the summer of 1995. No offense, England, but I was having too much fun in Ireland and skipped visiting you altogether.

2. Most flawed climate research: living (the wrong) 7 months of one year (Sept. 94 - March 95) in Moscow.

3. Weirdest honor: nominated for President of a Sinn Fein group in County Clare.

4. Dumbest move: sleeping one night on the streets of Paris. (tho not at LeWeb3 when I stayed at the lovely Hotel Du Cadran courtesy of www.hotelsaparis.com

5. Jack-of-these-trades: Jobs I’ve held for pay for at least one week: first-grade teacher, waitress, prep cook, chef, caterer, purchasing agent, project manager, PR wonk, marketing exec., interactive television strategist, developing show ideas for cable TV, freelance journalist, and in retail selling specialty foods, equestrian gear and plants.

6. Best use of a state park: living in Hueco Tanks State Park, Hueco Tanks, TX for 2 1/2 months in 1993 in order to rockclimb full time.

7. Strangest home: I’ve logged 12+ months of sea time living in teensy bunks aboard the SSVs Westward, Corwith Cramer, and Robert C. Seamans with the Sea Education Association. I’m madly in love with the islands of Bequia and Saba as a result.

8. What’s my major? I studied Environmental Science and Public Policy, wrote my undergrad thesis on Social Analysis of Soil Erosion and published on soil erosion (in Science) and environmental racism. So naturally, I’m now in communications.

In turn, I tag YOU. (Call it self-service meme tag. If you want to play along, play along and link back to it here.)

Regular readers of this blog may understand pretty well just what it is that I do, and how I can make them more effective and profitable by expressing their ideas and value offerings more clearly. I, however, do not always lay out my own value-added as clearly as I’d like. Oh, the irony. Cobbler’s children, and all that.

I help you achieve more when you present. I make presentations easier to prepare, less stressful to deliver and more closely tied to ROI for your business and career. I provide tools, ideas, consulting and support that lets you and your team convey ideas more effectively and memorably.

For some clients, this means training or coaching. I help re-write and re-script the messages themselves, and more specifically target them to the audience. We can work on things you would like to change or I can run diagnostics (I know. like you’re a car) on your existing presentations and suggest areas to strengthen.

But how do you know if this is for you? Try me. Contact me to discuss an introductory analysis of your situation, opportunities and strengths.

Chris Brogan did yet another cool thing with his blog this morning. He asked:

What were your first steps into social media?
Who were your early people you admired and followed?
How did you get started?
If you were going to give advice to someone starting out, what would you tell them?
What will you do in the next few months with social media?

Little known fact: I experimented with blogging from Dec 2005-July 2006 as the Science Vigilante. What I lacked then: community and connection. I wasn’t using a blog reader or reading a lot of other blogs. I just came across stories in the news.

Early 2007 I started to read blogs more, and even pitched some of my “top 10 tips” sheets to a few bloggers. (Much love to Seth Levine for picking them up, my first-ever blog “ink!”)

My real start was March 2007 when I started “Great Presentations Mean Business” on wordpress.com as a way to build up a “database of my ideas” on the web. Getting my ideas out there, demonstrating how I approach presentations and letting the world see how I think has been a crucial part of marketing my consulting business. That blog continues today as my website.

Bloggers I loved reading from early on: Doc Searls, Jeff Nolan, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Tara Hunt, Kathy Sierra, Brad Feld. Funny, I’ve gotten to meet all but Kathy and Brad so far. Wow. Thanks universe. UPDATE: I have NOT met Seth Godin. Frankly, I forgot for a second that he was in the list.

This story is thoroughly told elsewhere, but Twitter is what REALLY put the juice in my ability to network, connect and grow. I’m @pistachio. The smartest thing I did was to play around with many different ways of using Twitter, and the best advice I got was from Chris Brogan: “be human.”

Advice I give most often to those entering the space? Listen. Listen. Listen. Listen way more than you “speak.” Five-to-ten times more. When you do speak up? Be useful. Be nice. Ask questions. Listen. Be considerate. And yes, be human.

Where I am going with social media:
1) help convey the benefits of it to others, both for business and personal growth, and especially for nonprofits and social causes and
2) experiment further with making live events “more 2.0″ www.mediacasters.tv, mashing up widgets, lifecasting techniques and popularity/quality/attention data sorting of content.

Thanks for “tricking” me into writing this post Chris. You’re an important influence on many of us, and we’re grateful for that.

One big, brief thought while reading: Psychology | Inside a deal | Economist.com

Can you see the world, or at least *your* message, from the “audience” point of view?

The same perspective-taking and empathy skills that make people more effective in negotiations also make presentations much stronger and more persuasive. After all, a presentation is often the stepping off point towards engaging in negotiation.

Perspective-taking, “the cognitive power to consider the world from someone else’s viewpoint,” is probably the most important part of presenting more effectively.

(Via SigmaXi’s Science in the News.)

I just FAIL at the Inbox Zero concept and related methods for taming the email beast. I know this so well that I’ve never really *tried* hard to get there. A few half-hearted, high-energy assaults on my inbox, adoption of some of the main principles, yes, but never achieved. And the progress I *do* make I never manage to preserve.

The truth is, a LOT of my email just serves as little flags of information that I can take in at a glance with no need to act on. The time it takes to find and delete all of these little flags, if I bothered, would be wasted. It’s enough to have them register in my brain via gmail or blackberry and then flow away in the stream that is my inbox.

What I *really* need isn’t inbox zero, it’s inbox infinity.

Inbox Infinity

I want my optimized inbox to automatically delete all messages on a rolling time frame, x weeks or days after receipt. With that as the default, I would set up rules for certain messages to auto-archive instead of delete. The bulk of messages received fall into the first or second treatment.

Everything else can then be batch processed using an “Inbox Zero” like system, where I respond, convert the message to a task, add an event to my calendar or tag and archive information I will need for later reference.

This in place, I’d only have to give mind and click-share to the messages I need to act on. The rest would just play their parts as messengers and beacons and then drift away on the river without my intervention. It’s a subtle difference, and might not sound like a big time-saver to many of you, but deleting and archiving by hand is actually a substantial (and worthless) part of my inbox maintenance.

What do you think? Are there hackarounds in Gmail that would let me do this?

I am lecturing twice today at Bentley College in Waltham, MA for Professor Mark Frydenberg’s IT101 course: Introduction to Information Technology. Mark is extraordinary in the degree to which he incorporates, teaches and uses web 2.0 tools (wikis, blogging, popfly mashups) in his class.

The morning class was delightful and of course, we live streamed the entire thing on Qik.com/pistachio

I told my Twitter followers to follow this link to remain abreast of the students’ conversations and remarks via Twitter during the class. It is just a www.tweetscan.com search for “pistachio” so that everyone can follow all of the replies together and see the students’ individual introductions. It kept us all on the same page. Fun.

Next class is in a few minutes, I’ll return later to embed the video… Follow us live (if chat doesn’t work, there is probably just a time lag on the upload) at www.Qik.com/pistachio.