Avoiding Black Holes

My mother calls it the Black Hole of the Internet. Because I'm on the internet a lot as part of my work, it's not like I can avoid it altogether. And frankly, more of my trouble has to do with getting lost specifically in research or worse, in problem-solving. The only cure I know is to put a time limit on it.

I set a timer for 15 minutes, 20 min, an hour, or whatever makes sense for the task at hand. I try to factor in my schedule and the other tasks on my list when I decide how much time to spend. By setting a time limit, though, I have a much better chance of staying on the friendlier side of the event horizon. I expect you'll find like I do that it makes it much easier to be able to tear yourself away before you totally get sucked into your own personal black hole.

You know what it feels like to be sucked past the event horizon on your black hole tasks. There is a sense that you must be finished before you can move on or time simply disappears on you and before you realize it, hours have gone by. Some tasks are more like the proverbial tar baby than like black holes. You know what the tar baby tasks in your life look like: you tell yourself, "Just one more thing, and then I'll be done!"

If you've got one of those on your hands, then there is an adaptation to the strict time limit approach that I find works pretty well. Do the timer thing, then if you're still not done enough to feel like you can walk away from the task for real, spend 15 minutes (or more) on one or more other tasks on your list, then come back to the problem task and set the timer again.

You'll still be making forward progress overall, and if you're stuck on an intractable problem, you'll give your brain a chance to process any new information, recover from any frustration that's built up, and get creative about what to do next. In the meantime, the rest of your task list isn't held hostage to the one thing that's taking up all of your time.

Go ahead and try it for a week or two and see if it doesn't help make you more productive all the way around. And let me know how it works for you - or doesn't - I always like to know!

What life-enriching task(s) do you love to lose yourself in and how do you balance that with the rest of your life?

Career Management with LinkedIn

When I use the term career management, I use it in the sense of taking some control over your career instead of careering from job to job, allowing your job to control you. There will always be situations you can't control but your response to something like a layoff helps shape the kind of future that results.

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. ~ Lewis Carroll

Even though I intend for this to be about using LinkedIn to manage your career, there are other tools out there too, no tool in the world will be of much service to you if you don't know what it is that you're trying to accomplish.

Here's one important key you'll get from me over and over again - just like you have to want to know what you want from your career in order to not waste your time on a job that doesn't suit you, you also have to know what you want from LinkedIn (or any other social media tool, or any other tool for that matter) so that you don't waste your time in the great black hole of the internet.

Personally, that not wasting time on the internet is a regular battle for me and one I don't always win, but that's how I know how important it is. The only way I know how to win that battle is to determine ahead of time which tasks will support reaching your goal and how much time to set aside for each task - "however long it takes" is usually not the best answer. Face it, there is always too much to do. Make the time allocation a matter of priorities and degree of confidence that time spent on the task will yield the results you're after and you'll probably be on target.

What is it, in general terms, that you want from LinkedIn? I happen to think that in addition to building your network,, it's good for increasing visibility within that network and also beyond it. Used properly, LinkedIn can be even better at establishing and improving credibility. You can also use LinkedIn as a great research tool when you've identified a certain kind of role and/or a have targeted a specific company. Use it for finding out more about companies and hiring managers, determining what skills are needed for certain roles, and figuring out what options are available out there.

So - you've identified your over-arching goal (and it's one you can control, right? If not, we need to talk coming up with a better goal) and determined that a certain amount of time on LinkedIn is likely to help you reach that goal. Here are some of my thoughts about how you can make the most of LinkedIn:

• First the obvious - scour LinkedIn for people you know and respect and who respect you back and get connected with them. I happen to be in the quality over quantity camp (ask yourself if a LinkedIn connection could be mutually beneficial), but you decide what works best for you. If you're just starting out, expect a certain addiction to the excitement that comes with finding new people to add to your network. If you've been on LinkedIn for a while, don't forget to incorporate finding new people who may have joined and inviting people you want to be in your network as part of your ongoing maintenance program.
  
  
• If you're still employed, build your network now, before you need it. If you're recently unemployed, start adding people while your skills are fresh on their minds. If you've been unemployed for a while, this is a great time to build up your network by letting people know what you've been up to. Just remember that even if you have lots of extra time on your hands, they still have a lot to do, so keep your requests short, simple, and to the point.
  
  
• Don't overlook the usefulness of becoming connected with friends and family, even if they don't work in the same industry as you. Frankly, you never know what they know. Similarly, don't limit yourself to regional contacts, even if your work is primarily regional. If someone from out of the area (so is knowledgeable and highly respected without being a direct competitor) can say good things about you, sometimes that is the very best recommendation available.
  
  
• Speaking of recommendations, make recommendations for people in your network and be sure to show your thoughtful and analytical side when you do. Not only are they more likely to say something nice about you in return, know that the recommendations that you make tend to say as much about you and your thought processes as they say about the person you're recommending.
  
  
• If you haven't started an ongoing maintenance program yet, do so now. Identify tasks (from this list of tips, if that helps) that you'll do on a regular basis - once a week, once a month, once a year, whatever makes sense - and then stick to that schedule as much as possible. If you fall off, just start back up again wherever you left off.
  
  
• Part of your maintenance program should include periodically re-vamping your Summary and/or your employment history. You can refine what you've written and make it better, or just change it out a bit to keep it fresh. Either way, your network is notified that you've made changes, so it puts your name out there in front of them again.
  
  
• If someone who is in a position to write favorably about your work hasn't made a recommendation yet, don't be shy about asking. The thought simply may not have occurred to them. Let them use their own words, but feel free to share what specific aspects of your work you'd like for them to comment on.
  
  
• You can share up to three URL's - choose wisely which ones to use to represent you. You can label each of them with more user- (and SEO-) friendly names by choosing 'Other' for the type of website.
  
  
• Consider using your LinkedIn status update and TinyURL or bit.ly or some similar URL-shortening service to share out useful information that is distributed to your network. This way you're being helpful and they're seeing your name again.
  
  
• Link your blog to LinkedIn and members of your network will be able to see your latest post(s) if they have that service turned on. If you have that service enabled yourself, it gives you something to use as a prompt to reach out and connect with the people in your network.
  
  
• Status updates are great for maintaining a passive connection with people but make sure you also use LinkedIn in an active way too. I find it easy to reach out and say hi to past co-workers via LinkedIn messaging on a regular basis or simply watching everyone else's status updates and blog posts for interesting news items on which I can comment.
  
  
• You can also become more actively engaged with your network by finding and joining alumni groups (both schools and workplaces) and other groups created around topic areas relevant to your job search and participating in discussions so that you get to know the other people in the group better and they get to know you. Be yourself, just remember to be your best self and you're likely to do well. Pay special attention to discussion topics where you can be of service to others. I nearly suggested 'where you can show off what you know' but frankly, that's just more likely to make you look like a blowhard. Stick with being in service to others and you'll be much better off.
  
  
• Use the Q&A function in LinkedIn to find additional ways you can be of service to others and look for opportunities to provide even more information (so long as it's relevant) than what was actually requested. The person needing help can rate your answer so it's worthwhile to be as helpful as possible.
  
  
• In all cases (Q&A, discussion groups, status updates, etc) remember to mind your manners. Treat it like a lunch meeting and ask yourself if you'd conduct yourself that way during either the formal or the informal portion of an in-person interview.
  
  
• Use LinkedIn to research skills needed to be successful in a role and/or to ask questions of people who can help educate you further in that respect. This is a great way to identify where you might need to update skills and/or education.
  
  
• Search on specialized terms to find out more about a particular kind of position or to find relevant job postings
  
  
• Use LinkedIn to find out more about a company (indirectly from the information available on LinkedIn or more directly from people you can contact that way) and/or a potential boss. Remember that network you've been growing? This is a great time to tap into it for information and (when the timing is right) for introductions.
  
  
• When researching companies, check to see which companies are related via common career paths. This can tell you a lot about the company, suggest additional opportunities and help you find more networking footholds. Compare job titles, check out top schools, and take note of the demographics information for more clues. If it's a company you'd like to consider approaching for work, check out the variety of job openings they have posted as well as the recent changes, new hires, and newsworthy updates that show up. Any of these can help you figure out a way in.
  
  
• Prepare for interviews by ensuring you're up-to-date on terminology and buzzwords, current thinking and concepts, and personnel movement within your industry. Use the discussion topics and Q&A section to keep your own knowledge and thinking fresh, regardless of whether you participate yourself. If you need some remedial help, you can keep it confidential by asking questions privately. You can search for people using a variety of parameters, including title, current and historic company associations, keywords for skills or experience, promotion time-frames, location, etc.
  
  
• Use your imagination to think of other ways of conducting research or engaging with people that might be beneficial to you. The sky is pretty well the limit.
  

No matter how you're using LinkedIn, it's a good idea to actively manage the process and take the position that you get what you give. You can show yourself to be helpful here too by sharing any of your own favorite LinkedIn tips and tricks. I'm also happy to answer questions that show up in the comments in the event I've left out any important suggestions or you need help creating the results you want.

What connection or disconnect do you see between how you show up and what results you see?

Pay Attention or Pay the Piper

Some people don't take the time to pay attention, and it can really cost them. Don't be one of those people, especially when it comes to social media and networking.

I feel genuinely fortunate to have had a long and varied career. Even more fortunate that I've now lived a long enough life to make it seem possible that I've done all the things that I have. And that I've gotten over worrying whether I seem 'scattered', but that's beside the point.

The point is, that with so much past life experience and a genuine desire to help people out, I regularly contribute to conversations about a wide variety of topics when I feel like I have something worthwhile to offer. In an era of social media as business development platform, this has yielded some interesting if, in my opinion, rather moronic, results.

Although it's been nearly 20 years since I last worked in television, where I used to be a reporter and a weather anchor, I figure my experience in the TV industry and my expertise as a career management coach is occasionally useful to people. When a recent college graduate wanted some ideas from other LinkedIn professionals for how to land her first TV gig, I joined in with some thoughts of my own.

Sadly, someone else in the group apparently uses it primarily to harvest contact information with little to no thought about whether the individuals attached to that information are in any way her target market. The fact that we're part of the group is apparently qualification enough.

Because of that, soon after my contribution to the job search discussion, I received an email that claimed not to be a pitch (then later allowed that it might indeed be that) and then went on to pitch me on some product or technology for which I have zero use or interest personally. Because I no longer work in television, and haven't for nearly 20 years.

What's really too bad about this, though, is that if she'd paid any attention at all, it needn't have been a waste of her time or mine. Although truthfully, my 90-second investment did lead to this post and it probably took all of 10 seconds for her to launch her automated pre-written email, so maybe that's why she doesn't care. Again, however, I digress.

The point is that had she taken a bit more time and approached me as an individual and customized her message to target me, not some generic me from 20 years ago who still would have felt slimed, I could perhaps have helped her out. Because I genuinely like helping people out and because I still have a number of contacts in the industry. And I probably could have given her some advice about how to better pitch her whateveritis (I immediate sent the message to the bit bucket, so I don't even know anymore what it was). Some of the advice might even have been useful.

But because of not paying attention and the fact that one of the things for which I have very little tolerance is acting stupider than you are, I don't really feel like helping her out anymore. Should she happen to discover this post and realize it's about her, the advice here should be at least as worthwhile as anything else I could have done. And look, the rest of you get it for free! You don't have to have made the mistake to learn from it!

Paying attention to where people are, what they really want, and looking to see whether and how you fit is important. Paying attention to your own mistakes (and others) and learning from them is important. If you don't pay attention, you'll pay the price.

If you're lucky, the Piper's fee will only be 30 lashes with a wet noodle. Sometimes, though, it's worse. Sometimes it's not just a pitch that didn't land; sometimes it's a whole host of missed opportunities - or more disastrously, several potential clients or markets entirely closed to you if you happen to annoy the wrong person. Just hope they don't mention you by name if they're going to go public with their annoyance!

If you've been slimed via social media, do share. If you want help figuring out how not to slime people but still get your point across, I might be able to help. Frankly, though, Havi (with her duck, Selma) and Pistachio can probably help you out even more. I highly recommend them.

What new things have you noticed lately?

Advice for the Jobless

More news today about Microsoft job cuts so I figure it's a good time to remind everyone of some resources that might make facing job loss easier.

For anyone who's just lost a job, I've got a decent Top Ten list of how to successfully deal with a layoff.

If you're still waiting for the other shoe to drop, preparing for a layoff involves additional important skills and advice, aptly outlined by friend and colleague, Sylvia Taylor.

I have a different Top Ten list for what to do if you survive a layoff.

Many of the suggestions I offered about using LinkedIn for job hunting in a television interview earlier this year are just as applicable to Twitter and Facebook too so well worth reviewing and incorporating into your strategy.

And now there is also a website called Lay-Off Move On that helps support people getting back on their feet again post-layoff. Check it out and maybe you'll find some gems there to get you back into the work-force again and keep you sane till you get there.

If you have other tips, suggestions, or resources, post them here in a comment. The best way I know to deal with a layoff is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and find a way to keep putting one foot in front of another. If I can help with that process, I'm happy to do so.

What helps you keep your chin up when times get tough?

Customer Service and Twitter

I am a major advocate of Twitter these days, now that we're beginning to see some more mature uses of the medium beyond sharing the sort of latte the person in line in front of you is ordering. Reputation and brand management is one such emerging use that makes a great deal of sense to me. Breaking news is another - I do hope 'real' journalists and citizen journalists figure out how to play nicely together in a way that drives the sort of revenue that keeps trained journalists employed. We still need them just as much as we need citizen journalists.

Customer service and technical support, the role in organizations that is most near and dear to my own heart is a bit more complicated than the brand management element and may be looking at a reinvention of its own.

At this point, there are two things that I know. Firstly, Twitter (or something like it) will be involved. Secondly, we don't yet have a serious clue exactly how that will look when it's done right.

Twitter will play an important role in customer service because that's where so many customers are and there are more and more of them on Twitter all the time. To ignore customers in the Twitterverse is to sign your own death warrant.

On the other hand, to engage in brand management efforts devoid of any response that is truly meaningful to the customer is to make only empty promises. Customers figure out pretty quickly (even more so when they're talking with one another) that empty promises are just a way of pretending you're not ignoring them.

Fine - so we'll engage with our customers via Twitter and that's customer service on Twitter.

Not so fast.

To be effective and to provide value, customer service functions and technical support even more so, must be scalable and must provide more than one-off responses that are then subsequently lost. Logging customer interactions and tracking reported incidents and making this data searchable - which ultimately evolved into customer relationship management and knowledge management initiatives - are important elements to efficiently providing effective, valuable, and scalable customer service.

Simply responding to customer complaints that show up on Twitter doesn't take that into account so while it might work for a short time - and look good while it's working - it can't last. And then what you've got is a PR nightmare that no amount of brand management effort on Twitter or anywhere else can save.

That means we've got to figure out the why, the how and the detailed logistics of how to make it work. I believe this is a much bigger conversation, and some companies are clearly beginning both the discussion and the experimentation needed to move it forward. And that is truly just the beginning.

There is a great deal of work to be done on this front, which is rather exciting to me even though I'm reasonably certain it's a bit frightening to those organizations figuring out this train is already running much faster than they feel like they can catch up.

Hint - if you don't feel even a bit concerned about that, then chances are pretty good you don't even realize there is a train to catch, which means you run the risk of being run over by that train outright.

But I digress...

Before we can make much progress, we have to identify what customer service needs Twitter satisfies - and also what needs it creates. We have to identify tools and create process that help fully integrate Twitter into existing "best practices" and create new "best practices that are possible within this new paradigm we're creating. True, Twitter is just another communication method, but I've long held (about 24 years, actually) that the mode of communication actually influences the communication process itself. That too is another digression.

One "for instance" on the tool side, Socialtext might provide a solution for some needs; other tools probably exist as well and there are more needed to be built once we better understand the requirements.

On the process side, it's important to work out how best to handle the matter when a customer captures the attention of the CEO instead of a technical support agent as well as how to drive conversations toward customer service rather than away from them to someone else seen as more effective.

This is an old issue writ even larger by the existence of Twitter. Most customer service professionals dread this happening. Not because CEO's shouldn't talk to customers - they absolutely should - but that they should know enough about their inner workings of their own organizations to make the problems better, not worse, and in so doing, still follow established processes so that someone doesn't jump the line just because they know the right @ name to use.

What it really comes down to is that it's probably no less true of organizations than it is of individuals that the increased attention that comes with something like Twitter doesn't change you so much as expose you for who you really are.

In the meantime, I have some thoughts of my own about what it will take to pull this off and make customer service and support work in a world that seems inclined to tip more and more toward Twitter. First though, I'd like to hear what you think, what your questions and concerns happen to be at this point, and what you've seen and heard that works for you.

What do the people depending on me really need?

LinkedIn Job-hunting Tips

For those of you who caught the KCTS show, About the Money, tonight with a story on using LinkedIn to improve your job-hunting chances, I sure hope you got something useful out of it. If you didn't see the show, you can already find the story online so you can still pick up some quick tips if you're so inclined.

Even in 4 1/2 minutes (a lifetime by TV journalism standards) you can't really get all the information squeezed in that you might want, so my thought is to expand the list here on Survival Strategies for Techies and provide some additional detail as a companion to the story that aired.

If you've got some questions about using LinkedIn (or other social networking sites) for job-hunting, let me know and I'll make sure I address them in that post. Questions you hear from other people, or things you notice other people don't do right (even me!) on LinkedIn count too.

As another thought - if you think there might be some folks who would find a short class helpful, I'd certainly consider that as well.

In the meantime, I want to make sure to thank Krista Canfield from LinkedIn for connecting me with the KCTS crew, to Terry Murphy, the producer of the story, to Greg Davis, one of the videographers and to Tim Griffis, the other videographer and the editor for making us look and sound so good.

I also want to thank Jeanne Cost for agreeing to be a much more involved interview subject than was originally explained and to each and every one of my friends and neighbors (and their friends) who were kind enough to take my calls and return them when I was in the challenging position of having to seek someone out at the last minute. There's nothing like saying "I understand you can't help, thanks so much for considering it - do you know anyone else who could?" to make me feel like a reporter again!

For that matter, there's nothing like saying a heartfelt, "Thanks!" for making you feel pretty good about life.

Who can you thank for helping you?

Twitter - Jumping the Gap

Perhaps it's because I'm more involved in Twitter these days but I'm finding more and more evidence that Twitter is jumping the gap - beginning to cross the chasm between early adopters and going mainstream.

Of course, for some, this is about as welcome as jumping the shark but this is the stage of maturation I really love. I love the discovery of something new, figuring out how it can be useful, and then sharing that vision with others until they get it themselves. My first experience with this whole World Wide Web aspect of the internet was like that and now with Twitter, I'm actually melding that with a return to a comfort zone distinctly reminiscent of the early days of BITNet.

Near daily, we're finding new uses for Twitter. Now that it's not just about what sort of coffee drink the person in front of you is ordering, it's not just about marketing either. During the snow storms last month in Seattle, finding out weather and road status were invaluable tools for coping with all the disruption.

And Twitter is great for breaking news. Tweets today started full of news and speculation about Steve Jobs and quickly moved on to subjects like the plane crashing in the Hudson River and other topics that regularly take a bit more time to reach mainstream media.

In fact, it was at least three days between when I heard about the pantsed Vail skier via Twitter and the first forwarded email in my inbox. News junkie that I am, I'm following news-oriented Twitter accounts as fast as I can discover them.

From these uses, it's not at all a big leap to thinking of using Twitter in emergency situations including using Twitter as an emergency broacast system and the possibility of having Twitter play a role in a larger technology solution for emergencies and disasters.

Twitter has been a great discovery mechanism as well - finding new people, finding blogs like the one published by Washington State Department of Transportation and finding lots of other great sites and interesting information.

It wasn't so very long ago when the notion of being rescued with Twitter was a big deal. Now that this seems an obvious go-to, I wonder where we'll head next with this technology. We like to make predictions this time of year - how do you see Twitter being used in the future and what would it take to get there?

In any case, the pattern I've noticed is technology is often used for fun before it's real usefulness is identified and put to work. It doesn't hurt to think about what's fun in our own lives and how that might be made useful.

How do I use technology to move me forward?

Some Off-the-Grid Internet Scenarios

A while back, I mentioned the possibility of a future where we might have internet off the grid. Based on comments I've received and ongoing search statistics, this seems to be a popular topic these days, so maybe it's time to elaborate further.

First, let me make extremely clear - while mostly knowledgeable in most of the areas I delve into here, I am far from expert. I would, however, love to get a dialogue going on the subject, as I believe it's a useful converation to have. At the very least, there are enough different implications here for multiple science fiction stories. There may be some business opportunities too.

Scenario - Commercial power available but in limited quantities
If society has access to some but somewhat limited amounts of commercial power, then obviously there would have to be some kind of prioritization or auctioning to decide who has access to that power. Think television/radio spectrum frequency distribution. Under such a set of circumstances, I can imagine that at least some server farms might have access to at least some commercial power but it might not be 24x7. Average businesses and individuals would likely not have access to commercial power - if they did, we wouldn't need this conversation.

If this scenario were to come about, then much of the internet might look from the outside like it does today, except that businesses and individuals would need individual power supplies such as from solar, wind, or geothermal sources in order to connect to it. You'd have access to the internet pretty much as you're used to now, just not all the time like we have today.

Since others would be in similar circumstances, you might be able to access static data (such as website pages) right away but something like an email response to a question (especially involving other individuals and smaller businesses) would be somewhat delayed. Solar-powered wi-fi routers mentioned in my previous post would be an important element in keeping such a system working.

Scenario - Little or no commercial power available
In a more post-apocalyptic scenario, there might not even be enough commercially-available power to run server farms but that doesn't mean the internet has to go away altogether. We've gotten used to the near-instantaneous nature of data transmission across the internet but those of us who remember the days of Store and Forward know that data can still move even when it gets held up for a while.

In my imagination, it would look a lot like the ham radio National Traffic System which uses local traffic nets to help move information. Ad hoc peer-to-peer connections would come up and down according to each individual's access to power and like a bucket brigade, or BitTorrent sharing, we'd pass along each other's traffic while accessing what we want for ourselves the same way.

Quite possibly, the data requests we make ultimately will be delivered to servers that aren't themselves up 24x7. The result would be request, delay, fulfillment - or, a lot like how cross-oceanic calls used to be placed where the request would be made of an operator who would make the connection while you're off-line and then ring you back when it was available. If that's too challenging for modern minds to fathom, think instead of holding for a call from the President.

In such a situation where data must regularly travel multiple intermittently-available routes, it may be that some additional protocols must be developed to optimize transmission but it's surely possible, even if it means falling back to simpler data types. Error correction would be the biggest problem. If a packet gets dropped along the way, it could take days to put it all back together again, depending on the severity of power accessibility. We're definitely talking about a different sort of animal than what we've become used to.

The solar-powered wi-fi routers would be a virtual necessity to make such a system very workable and almost certainly some social engineering would be required too along the lines of scheduling uptime so that data requests could be made and forwarded in a "timely" fashion.

Each scenario would have its own impact on what everyday life might look like but some commonalities exist. With a shortage of fuel, it's likely we'd be living in smaller communities oriented around food production. But instead of the near-isolation of frontier towns or the relative lack of communication between older European villages, we could still communicate and share with one another digitally.

If there is enough commercially-available power, we may even be able to continue with much of what we've come to expect is normal in terms of information-age business and commerce except that working in remote virtualized groups would be more common than larger groups housed together in cities.

Of course, if cities get better about their own food production, that would be another game-changer and there are some interesting possibilities around that as well. For that one, you'd have to talk to my brother-in-law - he's got some great ideas. If it's something that interests you, let me know and I'll put you in touch.

How do you see the future?

Tech Support of a Different Kind

These days, we're often too busy to nurture relationships. Sometimes we don't even get to know our our own neighbors very well. The isolation and relative anonymity of the internet sometimes exacerbates this problem - but not always.

My friend, Mike, tells me today that his brother-in-law's house in Gig Harbor burned down earlier in the week - the kind of event that is always tragic and hugely impacts a family. Someone has already been kind enough to have posted a website with information and photos about the fire - started by a raccoon, most likely.

Best of all, the site also makes it easy for people to contribute to a fund supporting the family and it also lists various other kinds of contributions that would be helpful for them. Something like this makes it so much easier for friends and neighbors to support one another in times of need and I'm always impressed by the ingenuity and compassion involved.

More than once, I have seen friends and family support one another through grave illness via the CaringBridge website. Caring Bridge has been descibed as "social networking for sick people", providing "connection, love, and support when you need it most" by making it easy to post updates and photos to people who want to stay in the loop, with minimal impact on those immediately involved. Guest book entries where people can express their love and support work even better than filling up answering machines and keeping people notified of news is hugely helpful, whether it's a premature baby waiting to come home from the hospital or a loved one battling some disease process.

Network for Good helps us find charitable organizations looking for contributions - and makes it easy to give to them. I love using this site to handle all of my year-end donations all at once. They also make it easy to match volunteers and organizations needing help.

Sometimes the internet helps bring us together. Let's celebrate that capability and help it help us to be better humans.

Do you know of sites that help us help each other? Please do share. It's the time of year when it's that much more important to be thinking of how we can help one another in an economic climate that demands we do whatever we can. However badly we may each be hurting, someone else is hurting more. Even if it's just to reach out a hand or a thought, it's something that can make a difference.

How can you improve your connections with other people?

Healthy Lunching on the Eastside

Seattle Lunch 2.0 was an interesting event this month. For one thing, it was on the Eastside, which always seems easier somehow than crossing the Big Water even though technically it takes me as long to get to Crossroads area as it does to get downtown.

For another, Microsoft was a great host - way too much food and all of it good (geeks like good food) and pretty cool pedometers to boot, complete with USB cables for automatic data transfer to your computer. The pedometers and the lunch were courtesy of the Health Solutions Group which has their new HealthVault platform currently in beta, so we got to hear quite a bit about HealthVault and their plans in that space going forward.

People attending the Lunch 2.0 event had lots of questions - good ones too - and most of them centered around privacy. Listening to the answers, I didn't once hear the sort of 'trust us' comments that always put me on edge.

Instead, what I heard was how closely they'd worked with privacy advocacy groups to make sure they were taking the right approach. And when you work with stakeholders closely enough that they can feel satisfied that you've done all the right things (or done them as well as you can, anyway in some cases), then that's probably the best possible outcome.

Although lots of us were interested in the platform and what it can do, I'm not sure everyone was convinced. I tend to go back and forth on privacy myself anyway so I came away not exactly sure at first. But look at what we've done with debit cards and credit cards over the years. I remember when privacy advocates yelled about the dangers of those in the beginning. My father's tongue-in-cheek approach at the time was to take advantage of his position as an airline pilot to use them all over the world and hope to confuse anyone who might be paying attention. These days, we don't give it a second thought and in fact, many of us operate nearly cash-less.

So - while I do care about privacy myself and certainly care that Microsoft and their partner vendors are taking appropriate precautions in that area, I also take a long view of the risks vs. what I get out of it. I figure it's not unlike my approach to being a first-time mother of an infant - once I heard that mothers of two babies tended to not wash pacifiers nearly so rigorously the second time around and in fact, tended to let the dog lick off the big hunks by the time they got to three or four babies, I jumped straight to the less-than-hyperclean approach with my baby.

And just what do we get out of it with HealthVault? Well, I like being able to upload and track all my new pedometer data, especially since these new pedometers are ever so much more accurate than they used to be. The HealthVault interface itself leaves quite a bit to be desired but once I remembered that it's the platform and the other services are the real interface, I didn't mind that part so much.

Trying to find the right service was a bit of a scavenger hunt. I checked out all the HealthVault-compatible currently available, trying to fine one that made the most sense for my needs. I'm not trying to lose weight and I don't have a particular condition like diabetes where I'm trying to track specific information, although there are services that are relevant for people who are.

Neither am I old enough or sick enough to be taking multiple medications such that I'd benefit from tracking prescriptions and how they interact. And while reasonably active, I'm not training for a big athletic event these days so those services weren't quite what I was looking for either. I also wanted something a bit more comprehensive than a service designed primarily to make health information available to appropriate parties in case of an emergency (ICE).

In the end, I decided that what I really wanted was an all-around tool for managing day-to-day healthcare information and healthcare records once electronic information sharing with my doctor and pharmacist becomes a bigger part of my life. Being able to do that for all the members of my family was on my wishlist too. HealthyCircles appears to meet all those needs quite nicely and, as an added bonus, it's also free so I signed up for that service and started testing it out.

Nearly a week later, I'm starting to enjoy having data to review and have a plan in place for digitizing all my paper health records so that I can keep all that information in one place and more readily accessible. I'm thinking that will make that part of our lives considerably easier - that much more so thanks to digital filing.

At some point, I'll probably want more devices that work with HealthVault. I'll shift to a scale that allows me to directly import data and the same with our blood pressure monitor but manual data entry is probably good enough for now. We already have a HealthVault-friendly Polar heart monitor so I just need to get that set up.

Of course, as often happens in such situations, the more I play with this stuff, the more my imagination kicks in and the more I want to be able to do with it. I've already sent probably 4-5 suggestions to the HealthyCircles people so hopefully they're watching their inbox!

Noticing the issues I have seen as a consumer and having worked with hospitals as clients in the past, how ridulously silo'd information still is these days, the HealthVault platform is likely to be a game-changer. One of the services already offered is appropriately titled NoMoreClipboard. I mean, how stupid is it that I should have to fill out the exact same information from one time to the next - sometimes even on the same day if I happen to be visiting two different doctors in one fell swoop? That alone is bound to give us back some important chunks of time and that is certainly worth a lot right there.

There is so much more around the corner in this space. I'm looking forward to watching it unfold.

What helps keep you healthy?

Tales Worth Telling 2 - What IS That?

I keep up pretty well with current events - at least the sort that make it into the newspaper and broadcast news anyway. So a lot of times I understand what some of the hot searches are all about. Google Hot Trends searches are also a great way to catch breaking news, such as the crane collapse at the refinery in Houston the other day.

Then there are those entries in the top search list that make me scratch my head. I have no idea what they're about until I go look. Sometimes I'm sure I don't want to know or that finding out will simply be feeding some prurient interest. Sometimes I worry that by following the links to learn more, something bad might happen like I'll be placed on some government watch list or something. Of course, if it's on the Hot Trends list, in all probability I'll have lots of company there.

Today, there are a few of these. The first "Wha-aa?" is at the very top of the list, Green Gulch. On investigating, though, it turns out just to be one of those "I know what you're watching" things.

It seems that CBS News Sunday Morning profiled Green Gulch, and it must have sparked people's innate curiosity to learn more. Of course, Voice of America did a similar piece on Green Gulch nearly a month ago and I don't recall seeing that kind of spike in searches. Best guess(es)? CBS got the idea from VOA and more people watch CBS Sunday Morning News than listen to Voice of America.

For a while, I was confused about what that story had to do with "stone by design", considered by Google to be a related search. Then I discovered that Lew French's Stone By Design had been profiled by CBS News Sunday morning back in November. A-ha! Mystery (probably) solved.

Lake Placid Ironman competition - seems pretty self-explanatory. I'm not sure I'm all that curious about it or the results.

From the looks of it, not as many other people are all that curious either. As I write this, that search has dropped to number 17. The occasional spikes in searches on the Lake Placid Ironman probably have to do with coverage from CNN or people wanting to find out more about race results. And, having looked into it a bit more now (see there's that curiosity thing again. Really, the internet is a black hole), I can imagine that thunderstorms today and an expected finish time of midnight for some really would pique a bit more interest.

Roomsaver, pass. Probably featured in some news report and people are even more interested than usual right now in saving money. The most interesting aspect of this hot search item is that I can't seem to get to the website at the moment. That tells me they may be pretty new, perhaps not yet built for scaling, and some news piece grabbed enough people's attention that they're overwhelming the site at the moment.

Which brings me to my favorite on the list. Katie Holmes and her purple hands. Why would I care about Katie Holmes in the first place? And why in the world are her hands purple? Should I care about that?

Guilty pleasure or not. Inquiring minds want to know.

Investigating that one pays off with interesting stuff. Google Hot Trends searches are indeed helping create news. I'm not the only one finding out new things because of what other people are searching. Are her hands really purple? And if so, is it because of some kind of Scientology ritual?

You know what, after finding out that much, suddenly my curiosity has died. It's really not something I care about after all. There are way better things to think about than whether or not some celebrity's hands are purple, and why.

Update on the Roomsaver website - it finally loaded. It's a website (who'dathunkit). It helps you save money on hotel rooms (surprise!). They provide coupons for saving on rooms such as you might find on road trips. Okay, not a bad idea. Not super sexy either, but hey, who am I to judge? Saving money is saving money. Just remember to keep the coupons in the car.

Huntington Bank is a little trickier. It could be a bank robbery, but that was back in April and the most recent news story on the subject was three days ago. It could be because of recently posted profits when we're all feeling a bit skittish about the viability of some banks but again, that story came out Friday and none of the other banks mentioned in it are that high in the searches. Hmmm, still no joy. Time to give up for now.

On the creepy side of that search though, my concerns about randomly following links from the Hot Trends list may not be completely unfounded. It turns out there is a website called Businessuu that seems to operate by taking some of the text from top searches like these and then turn them into something vaguely... icky. I can't tell for what purpose, but surely it can't be good. I'm not linking to it. Trust me, you do not want to go in there. And if you ignore that recommendation and decide to go look for yourself and come across something unseemly or contract some gross virus, don't say I didn't warn you.

On that note, it's time to turn my back on the moving target. So, no storm chasing with Tropical Storm Dolly. I'm going to perhaps indulge in some voyeuristic tendencies and check out the Danica-Milka video of some exchange/fight they apparently had recently while trying real hard to ignore some of the idiotic comments by others. And then I'll see if The Long and the Short of It family can manage to combine some bicycling and ice cream to celebrate National Ice Cream Day.

Happy Sundae!

What puzzles you?

Tales Worth Telling

One thing I am, is curious... about a lot of different things. Some of my very best work has been the result of following my curiosities. I've always hoped that various great thinkers are right, that "curiosity has its own reason for existing" (Albert Einstein), that it is "one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind" (Samuel Johnson), and that "curiosity is the key to creativity" (Akio Morita).

Whatever else can be said of curiosity, certainly it's true that curiosity is a sure cure for boredom (Dorothy Parker). Her assertion that there is no cure for curiosity probably explains the extraordinary amount of time I often spend in the black hole of the internet.

Alastair Reid has his own views on curiosity and whether it may have killed the cat - "Only the curious have, if they live, a tale worth telling at all." Reid's poem, Curiosity has remained one of my favorites over the years.

Since I spend a fair amount of my time indulging in my curiosities, perhaps there can be some benefit from sharing my curiosity-driven investigations and travels. Who knows, it might be as simple as shortening the time you spend satisfying curiosities of your own, or maybe it will provide further fuel for investigations that may take you someplace new and wonderful.

News and current events make me curious. Popular culture makes me curious. And I'm finding the Google Hot Trends in searches are an endless source of fascination. I don't know that I'd want to spend all my time sharing what I learn about what searches people are making but it certainly would make the time spent chasing down that stuff a bit more worthwhile. We could always give it a try anyway to see how well it works.

A sampling of a few of today's hot search trends on Google...

Starbucks is closing 600 stores. People apparently want to know more about that, especially which ones are on slated for closure (thanks to West Seattle Blog for the link to the full list). Hopefully your favorite one isn't on the list. If it is, the one across the street will probably do just as well, don't you think?

And while lots of people know Salma Hayek, the producer of Ugly Betty and Oscar-nominated actress in the movie, Frida, apparently they're not so familiar with her now-ex fiance Francois -Henri Pinault. Or perhaps it's just that it's easier to find news of their broken engagement by searching on his name instead of hers. Celebrities' lives are always wildly exciting for the general populace for some reason, and I'm not always sure why.

The Science Friday searches are apparently two-fold. On the one hand, people could be wondering more about Earthrace, the bio-fueled boat profiled in today's Science Friday broadcast that recently completed an around-the-world trip in 60 days, 23 hours, and 49 minutes, breaking the world record. Or they could be searching for more information about the announcement that NPR will be drastically reducing funding for the popular Science Friday. Or both. Good news and bad news sometimes travel together.

One search that was hot earlier in the day and is now in the process of being eclipsed by more recent topics of interest is CDARS. The Certificate of Deposit Account Registry program allows you to invest up to $50M in certificates of deposit at one bank, bypassing the standard $100,000 FDIC-insurable limit by allowing banks to apply their own interest rates to CD's purchased from other banks through them. I believe that's how it works anyway, based on what I've read so far. I wouldn't recommend taking my word for it.

In any case, with the current status of banks and the mortgage industry causing some people such concern that bank runs are even making the news, it's no wonder that increased protection is of such interest today.

Bite of Seattle is the one that truly has me puzzled though. Is Google Hot Trends showing me what geographically proximate people are searching? Or are other people really that interested in our annual summer food festival? And if it's somehow the latter, how are they hearing about it? Seeing that people are now suddenly much more interested in the Aquatennial of Minneapolis (trust me, you do not want to click on the blog that proclaims itself to be the official website for the festival without a rock-solid virus-scanner installed) and a collapsed crane in Houston, I'm thinking maybe The Bite really is that well-known outside of Seattle (or there are just htat many of us here asking the question). Go figure.

So that's as much patience (and time) I have for tracking things down today. Clearly it's always a moving target, so I have to draw the line somewhere. It will be interesting to see how far this thread travels. In the meantime, feel free to comment on whether you think it's an idea with legs or not.

What makes you curious?

Time - Learning or Wasted?

While I believe no time or experience is ever truly wasted, sometimes I totally get into the fun of solving the puzzle and sometimes I just want it solved.

Today, I'd really just like for PayPal buttons to integrate seamlessly into ASP.net pages. I don't really feel like putting a lot of effort into figuring out how to make that happen. I've already had as much fun as I feel like having learning that I'm not crazy - that there is no easy bridge between Here and There when it comes to PayPal and ASP.net.

Likewise, I anticipate that investing a bit more time into a related matter will result in discovering that Microsoft has broken their own rules. Apparently building a web site with Microsoft Expression Web is insufficient insurance against having code render badly in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

While FireFox is happy to render code from the Adrotator control referencing a non-existent ImageUrl by displaying the AlternateText instead (as the definition implies it should), Microsoft instead chooses to hack up a hairball, announce to the whole world there is no image to be had and not apply the desired formatting to the alternate text.

Sooner or later, I'll figure out how to make it all happy. I'd rather it be sooner than later. Most of the visitors to the Soaring Mountain website are still using IE so even though I'm pretty sure it's not my fault, it's still embarrassing to have it look that bad. To date, I've been happy enough just to tinker away with it every so often and the rest of the time hide my head in the sand, accessing my own website using Firefox exclusively and pretending there isn't a problem... but that's getting old. Now I just want it fixed.

Of course, if you know of any answers or solutions for either issue, I'm willing to consider suggestions. I'm a total hack at coding and I never pretend to be otherwise; my time is definitely better spent coaching.

How would you rather spend your time?

Avvo Joins the Party

You know how a good host is supposed to introduce people who might have something in common and then wander off to help others? Well, I probably missed a great opportunity to be a good host and it seems that Avvo and Lawyerpalooza folks found each other anyway even without my help.

Tall Person - AKA Rock God with The Big Lubersky (sadly, not playing this year) - let me know recently that Avvo will support Lawyerpalooza 6, coming up Thursday evening, April 24. Rumor has it that there could be Avvo-styled ratings cards for the judges to hold up to score the bands. How perfect is that - the website that lets you rate attorneys helping to rate attorney rock bands!

Then, I turn around a short day or two later and hear from an excited Avvo person, "Hey, did you know there's a Lawyerpalooza where lawyers play rock music in a battle of the bands!?"

D'oh! Yes, I am feeling a bit sheepish that I didn't facilitate that connection earlier! Everything seems to be humming along smoothly now though anyway so no harm, no foul I guess. Just... well... oops.

Anyway, I plan not to worry about it too much come Thursday, when I turn into a professional groupie. As those who know me already understand, I'm likely to be moving pretty slowly on Friday morning, with all the dancing I'll be doing in support of underfunded Seattle school music programs. I keep fairly active, but when you dance all evening and don't ever sit down, that can take a bit of a toll.

If you're there, come keep me company on (or near) the dance floor or at least say 'hi'. You don't even have to dance if you don't want to, though it's way more fun if you do. And don't forget to bring cash for the bar and "Chicago voting" (vote early and often) for your favorite band(s). Food is provided by Avvo.

What helps you get over the small stuff and remember "it's all good"?

I Know What You're Watching

We watch far more television in our house that I care to admit or really have time for - the adults anyway. I usually blame it on the general interest that drew us to or grew from our time in television. Lately, I've been spending more and more time surfing or doing other work while watching and I've noticed an interesting convergence between television and the internet. I know what you're watching and last night, it was Kipling.

Maybe you've noticed this too. I know what you're watching because I have the Google Hot Trends gadget on my personalized search page (which, btw, I've finally further personalized with the Tornado theme) and when we all watch TV in the evening, we apparently all surf the web to look up stuff related to what we're watching. While all of you were looking up Rudyard Kipling, his son, Jack, and the poem, we were trying to figure out why Kim Cattrall was playing the wife and mother, Carrie. I won the bet that she was an American.

Whenever I find names on the 'hot sheet', invariably they're names of American Idol contestants the night that they got voted off or Simon said something particularly interesting about them. It was interesting to see so many of the top spots related to the Kipling movie, a public television offering that apparently received way more attention than I'd have guessed it might.

As much as TV rules at night, in the morning it's all current events. Last week it was the midwest earthquake and the New Madrid fault system. This morning, the Kiplings and My Boy Jack are old news and all but Rudyard himself have been pushed off the top ten by Bill Maher, the Boston Marathon (go Brian and Carol!), and what I can only guess is an early morning porn rush. Not sure what that was about - that one was strange.

It's this sort of convergence that makes me curious to see what the future will bring in terms of entertainment and information and blending the two. If you have comments or predictions, I'm interested. Go ahead and share your thoughts.


How does your thinking affect your actions?

Found It!

For quite some time now, I've been asking Jobster for a widget that would let me display job postings on my website and blog that might be of interest to all three people who visit. It seems my friend Nathan at nPost has beat them to it, creating a widget that displays jobs at startups.

To see it in action, check out the sidebar over on the right. I like it, this is exactly what I was looking for - a way to connect geeks with jobs that might interest them and help entrepreneurs find great talent.

Hopefully it will help you find what you're looking for. Of course, if you don't know yet what that is - or you think you might need help succeeding in your new role - I'm certainly available to work with you to sort that out too!

What work keeps you engaged?

Brain Re-routed

In researching yet more issues with my appliances, I ran across an absolute gem today called Shift Happens.




When I'm not battling appliances and unintentionally crusading for better customer service, this is the world that I live in and why I work with the people that I do. Thanks to the folks at Bring Good Things to Life for both the heads up on the video and also for information and moral support in dealing with the company that brought us flaming dishwashers and exploding oven doors.

Here's a tip - even if you've got good service most of the time, stuff still has to work and people have to feel fairly treated.

What gets you back on track again?

Hey, Don't I Know You?

Sometimes worlds collide - and I very nearly always find it an odd experience when it happens, even when it's partly expected. Catching up on an industry blog or two today, I was reminded rather abruptly that Dean Hachamovitch, whom I mostly know as Dean & Joan, is also Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager of Internet Explorer. Oh, yeah, that Dean. Weird.

As to the whole IE 8 issue - Joel is right, there's no good answer, let alone an easy one. I will say one thing however - that is, from my experience and a complete Microsoft outsider who uses Firefox more often than IE right now, Dean is one of those scary smart guys you find every now and then. And I don't say that lightly; I'm not someone who is that easily intimidated in the smarts department.

So - forget popularity. Someone's bound to be ticked off by the time this thing is set loose - a whole bunch of someones, actually. Fortunately, I anticipate Dean can handle it. When he signs off on a decision that he thinks is best, though, I'm sure that at least there will be some logic behind it. Would that logic could be enough in this situation.

What is it that you already know?

The High Road and the Low Road

My world is full of technology. Everyone's is these days, for the most part. Sometimes there are some interesting juxtapositions between high tech and low tech aspects of my world. Today, in addition to self-checkout at grocery stores and hardware stores, you can also rent movies from a vending machine for a dollar a day, right there at the grocery store. How cool is that?

Last night, I rented Stranger Than Fiction from a DVD rental machine. All three of us loved the movie. Small Person laughed out loud as soon as he realized that Will Ferrell's character could hear the narrator, and everything about the film - from the graphics that showed how his brain saw the world, to the real end of the story - really worked. What really stuck with the junior member of the partnership, though, was the author's typewriter.

By the end of the movie, Small Person was expressing a wish for a typewriter that he could use, a manual one, no less. It turns out, that I have one - my high school graduation present from my parents. For some reason, he was interested in the typewriter being portable too and it turns out further that this is exactly what I have. Before we all had computers (let along laptops), my parents wanted me to have a portable typewriter so that I could be anywhere in the world and still write - letters, manuscripts, resumes, whatever.

And after all these years, I still have my old portable Olympia B-12 and it's in terrific shape though it hasn't exactly seen a lot of use lately. Even so, it works great and has some rather cool features - like an automated space bar, and a backspace key - that weren't so common on manual typewriters. Of course, manual typewriters - portable or otherwise - weren't exactly common either by the early 80's.

In any case, even with the ribbon pretty dried out because it's been ages since I've used or replaced it, Small Person happily sat down to type on it right away, coming up with some rather amusing stuff in the process. If you happen to run across a story about a wristwatch that's as unhappy about screaming as it is about having ended up lost and on Mars, in all likelihood it started here in this house.

His keyboarding skills are fine but the added pressure needed to get the keys to strike right was a bit tough for him. We figure it's good finger-strengthening exercise for the piano, though, and keep encouraging him to stay with standard fingering rather than lapsing into two-finger keyboarding.

So how strange is this - a digital native going back to visit the old country, seeing for himself why QWERTY keyboards are the way that they are and learning about platens, end-of-line bells, carriage returns and so forth and so on? Next session, I'll teach him about correcting mistakes in the world where backspacing doesn't equal deleting.

For now, I'm just letting him enjoy himself.

Meanwhile, I myself am playing on the computer with ActiveWords, after having heard about this pretty nifty little tool at a recent Seattle Lunch 2.0 free lunch/networking event for geeks. I'm not sure exactly how I feel about capturing keystrokes just yet, nor do I have good data yet on how much memory the application consumes. I can say, however, that the ease with which I can now launch some of my favorite applications makes it pretty slick to use and I know that's just the tip of the iceberg.

For instance - I have also worked out how to use ActiveWords to navigate to URL's I visit a lot. Right now, I'm navigating quite a bit to a couple of different Basecamp accounts, one for Startup Weekend Seattle, and another that we've set up for one of my closest friends who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.

What we decided was that all of the logistics around battling breast cancer - researching information, gathering the right health care professionals, strategizing and making plans, mobilizing all of the friends and family who are offering to be resources, and so forth - was just like managing the kinds of projects some of us do for work. And so now we have Project Boob Management, which makes me - for the time being anyway - the Project Boob Manager. Life takes odd turns.

As useful and interesting as high tech can be, I find it can also take over our lives in ways that are not so helpful. Now that we both have laptops, there are times when I realize that Tall Person and I are both in the living room together, navigating around in our own personal online worlds with little or no conversation between us. Something similar happens when we read sometimes too, but somehow it's different and even more disconnected when it's the computers. It's times like these that I see how important it is to strike a balance between high tech and low tech.

For those of you who who agree and are still striving for that kind of balance in your own lives, you might be interested in the Soul Tech workshop put on by Leif Hansen. If you missed out on tickets for Startup Weekend Seattle, it might be a great way to spend your Saturday afternoon this weekend. I wish there was a feasible way for me to be in both places at once, as it's a topic I feel strongly enough about to sometimes wish it was my workshop. Leif is good people though, and I'm glad he's getting such great attention for his work.

In the end, high tech that helps facilitate more human interaction - by making it easier to find each other and work together, or by saving time and reducing stress so that we have more time to spend with one another with fewer headaches - is probably some of the highest and best use of technology. Where it interferes with human interaction is probably a mistake, something I'm far more likely to think about the next time I go to the grocery store and am making the choice between using a check-stand with a real-live checker and going through the automated self-check.

Those automated movie vending machines are way cool though, just about any way you look at it. I have even noticed DVD kiosks in hospitals. I know from past experience that sometimes connecting over a good escapist-type movie can be a great way to recover from surgery or get through chemo if it's one of those times when no one really feels like talking that much.

I'll be sure to add that one to the Basecamp-supported Project Boob Management idea list.

And you should feel welcome to add a comment if you have questions, thoughts, ideas, around taking the high (tech) road vs. the low road.

How is technology helping or hindering what's important in life?

The Changing Nature of Communication

You can tell we're in the midst of a shift that doesn't yet really know where it's going. The below-30 crowd almost exclusively communicates very publicly with one another using Facebook and MySpace while at the same time somehow expecting more privacy than such openness would suggest. The over-30 crowd, having mostly come to terms with the usefulness of email, is starting to venture into social networking a bit late into the game. They're not quite certain of its relevance in their own lives and more wary of the additional exposure.

While these things shake themselves out, I keep coming back to thinking about how what we say is impacted by how we communicate.

Over the years, I've given a fair amount of thought to that. There was a time in my life when the idea of a graduate degree - just to have done the work to get one, not for any particular use for the degree itself - was appealing to me. As my mind wandered down that potential path, I pondered over what sort of research I'd want to do. The question that interested me the most was "How does the method of communicating impact the nature and effectiveness of communication?" - or something like that anyway. I'm sure a good advisor and mentor would have helped me refine the question into something better if I'd ever gone down that path in reality.

Context is helpful here. When this question first came up for me, I was a college student at a time when only scientists, military, and government had ready access to the internet as a general group. College students, if they had access to the computing labs did too, but that capability was generally limited to those of us in engineering or computer sciences in the earlier days.

This also pre-dated today's ubiquitous cell phones, and flat-rate long distance plans and inexpensive calling cards were also still well out in the future.

So, the communication landscape of the day consisted primarily of letters and post-cards. If you had money and it was worth the expense, you might call long distance on the telephone occasionally but it was something a starving college student thought about before doing... and even then, we tended to count on parents with enough money to reverse the charges and kept the calls fairly short out of necessity.

In mass communication, the notion of satellite transmissions making a broader range of television programming available to more people was just catching on for real, finally becoming more of an expectation than a novelty or luxury. The 24-hour news machine that burst onto the scene in the form of CNN coverage of the transition from Desert Shield to Desert Storm was still in our future. We were just getting cozy with the joke of "50 channels and nothing to watch."

These days, it's more like eight hundred and fifty. And still nothing to watch.

When I think of the fact that being limited to these forms of communication is entirely foreign to my 11-yr-old and as good as that to the 23-yr-old in my family for all he remembers of life before the digital divide opened up into a chasm, it boggles my mind.

Pen pals were fun to have but the time it took for letters to transit state lines took special care and nurturing to keep the relationships going. Overseas pen pals were even more cool but further complicated by the typical two week lag (one-way!) and the space restrictions that accompanied the use of the "aerogramme" letters. Still - if you ever received one, that characteristic lightweight - nearly flimsy - blue paper held such an exotic quality that it made one think of faraway places and the other cultures found there.

The real-time chattiness of phone calls was reserved for cross-town family and school friends. Cross-country calls were rare for "regular folks" and were usually placed only if there arose some urgent need - such as to communicate a death or some grave illness. I don't recall much overseas calling at all - telegrams were still the more common method for communicating urgent messages and paying by the word meant everyone kept telegrams brief.

Having grown up as a world traveler at a time when such a life made me and my lifestyle exotic, the global nature of relationships made possible by the Internet felt like coming home. I felt at more at ease with BitNet communications than any other form I'd experienced previously. I temporarily lost any sense of urgency with regard to ham radio and fully embraced the beginning of the digital age.

And this is when I began to notice that just as email was different from snail mail (though I doubt we'd really started calling it that yet - more likely it was just 'real' mail) and phone conversations, it was becoming clear that email was also different from group internet relay chat, which was also different from the person-to-person BitNet messages, with their 80-character limitations.

Have something quick to say with the expectation of a real-time response... send a BitNet message. If you want to say more, save it for an email. These days, text messaging is similar to that earlier counterpart, but more prevalent because we all have cell phones and so with an even greater expectation of immediate responses.

The more public, group orientation of Facebook adds yet another dimension to communications while Twitter is particularly well-suited for announcements made just in case anyone out there cares. In fact it doesn't seem a lot different from times when Small Person (along with others I've known) announces to no one in particular that he's heading to the bathroom. Good thing he's far less technical than I am at this point. Maybe he won't feel inclined to be mad at me by the time he realizes I've invaded his privacy in such a public way.

The question of privacy in an online life is a tricky one. I don't pretend to understand how we'll come to terms with that one. The best I can guess at this point is that we may adopt some digital version of the traditional Japanese sense of privacy. In a world where many walls were nothing more than shoji screens, made with translucent paper, Japanese created privacy where there was none by politely pretending not to notice anything that couldn't be seen directly. Such sensibilities have even spilled over into forced face-to-face environments such as trains where crowds are necessarily able to see and hear things they might prefer not to witness.

Already I have friends online with whom I'm likely to pretend when together in person that we don't know as much about each other's private lives as we do. We're open and honest with one another and I believe that's admirable - it just shouldn't come back to cause problems or embarrassment later.

Until we figure it out, I think of my online presence in much the same way as I think of keeping teeth brushed and hair combed. Good personal hygiene is good practice anyway - and really important to make sure it's done before leaving the house. Similarly, I still advocate being ourselves - our best selves - online. Being our best selves means that we don't have to worry about whether parents and bosses are watching - which they probably are these days, along with a lot of other folks. .

It's an interesting conversation to have - what we have to say to one another, how we say it and what sort of expectations we have (and can have) around privacy - and whether that's the same as anonymity. I definitely encourage you to comment and get the discussion going. The more publicly we hold the conversation, the more robust it will be.

What do you have to say, and to whom?