moving to tumblr ... much nicer there

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zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

I randomly decided to start reading this book again.  A flash in my mind, like most "hunches" that i get told me to pick it up.  I found a full text version of the book online within minutes and started reading.  It's been over 20 years since i've read this, and i've grown a lot since then.  It's one of those reads that blows my mind every few "pages."  If you haven't read this recently and like to think, I highly recommend this food the mind and soul.

Check this... 

"... Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn't a human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It's all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. It's run by ghosts. We see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts and more ghosts. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living."

groundswell and more

I've decided to add a new form of information gathering to my life.  I run every morning for 45 minutes which gives me plenty of time to think, listen to music ... and now - listen to books!  audible.com has just what I need.  So I'm "listening" to the "Groundswell" ...  some good ideas in this book even if promotes Forrester far far more than I'd like.   

This is by no means a summary of the book... just three ideas that stuck with me as i listened.  As I type these, I feel thay are kind of obvious, but always good reminders:

1) People have an innate desire to connect with others.  In fact this connects really well with a set of research by Steven Heine on "similarity attraction" effect that I've been digging, which not only speaks to the desire, but also explains the cultural differences between North Americans and Japanese in this respect - both are seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum.  This is another key point explained in the Groundswell book - which underlines the importance of not only profiling users from a technical perspective, but also geographically.

2) People in crowds can overpower corporations, governments and seemingly immutable forces.  In the past 10 years, crowds have contributed to produce some game-changing results: Linux and Wikipedia for example.  These two technologies demonstrate the power of people working for people.  Not everyone need contribute - only 1% of the community needs to create for the system to "work. "

3) Technology strategy has to be based on a solid understanding of customer needs.  This is even more important when it comes to deploying social media technology.  Too frequently, we deploy technology for the sake of doing so - rather than understanding the intent we are trying to achieve.   The book provides a simple framework (P.O.S.T.) to remind us of this fact.  Each step links to the next, providing clear traceability from requirements to implementation.  

P=people   ->    O=objectives    ->    S=strategy    ->    T=technology

Sounds good to me.  :)