I’m Not Here to Make the News

“One thing I’ve noticed about talking to certain types of press, particularly mainstream, is that they have a pattern in mind before they write about something, and the better you conform to the pattern the more coverage you get.” – Matt Mullenweg, Automattic.com

I did a little writing for my college paper. At the time I was there, the editors had a handful of stories they thought should be covered. The local movie theater using high-fat buttery oil on popcorn, for example. I didn’t. That’s not interesting, it’s annoying. Matt’s comments make it sound like quite a few people haven’t grown out of it.

Often when I too get calls from the press, it feels less like they’re reporting and more like they’re covering their ass on some fiction they just wrote.

Or just plain missing the interesting story.

When I turn the mic on someone for this podcast, I don’t know where the conversation will lead. I trust the conversation will be good, that they’ll share something interesting. Whether or not they do is up to your ears.

Suspicious Van in the Village

This just in from the St. Anthony Police Department “Suspicious Activity” mailing list:

On the morning of May 11th, two young boys were playing basketball in front of a home in the 3500 block of Belden. A black full-size van with tinted windows pulled up next to the driveway and the driver asked the boys to let him see them make some baskets. As an adult inside the home came to the door, the driver was heard telling the boys he would see them tomorrow. The van then left the area. The driver was described as a white male approximately 40-50 years old. The van and the driver were not known to the juveniles or the adult.

The driver did not make any attempt to entice the boys to come closer or to get into the vehicle.

Opportunitize, Not Monetize

30,000 feet up, on my way to a 3-day client meeting I took a tip from Doc Searls and stared at the landscape.

That altitude provides a pretty good view of the roadway branding our country like a waffle iron. While I speculate most of these stretches of pavement are unused most of the time, without them, our economy would evaporate.

From regular Joes carpooling to the office, armies of FedEx and UPS trucks making their rounds, high school kids driving to their first job interview, garage bands loading up their gear for a show. My car? It’s sitting in a parking spot awaiting my return.

All while Eric Rice‘s Future of Podcasting plays in my headphones. He snarks, “People always ask ‘How do you make money at [podcasting/second life/etc]?'”

Opportunity.

Without a car, there are simply fewer opportunities. Opportunities to connect with other people. Opportunities to make money. While I don’t put direct pressure on my car to pay for itself, the inverse is true. Replace ‘car’ with ‘podcast’, ‘blog’, ‘laptop’, ‘telephone’, or ‘mouth’. The statement is still true.

Remember the bit from Dave Slusher’s Amateur Means You Do It For Love talk about how podcasting makes conversations and other opportunities happen? Opportunities that wouldn’t happen otherwise?

And remember when Doc rhetorically asked, “What’s the business model of my telephone?”

Yeah. Me too.

Opportunitize: to turn anything into an opportunity.
“No, my car doesn’t make any money, but I’ve opportunitized it to get a job.”

What an awful, corpspeak word, I just submitted to the pseudodictionary.

Drive 105 Repo’d. Replaced with Love

The last hold-out in the Twin Cities commercial ‘alternative’ radio dial succumbed to Love today.

“Every mini-van driving soccer mom with a 15 year old will be pleased as punch when she turns on her radio and hears this festival of shit pouring forth from her speakers.” – Sornie

Two choices remain; The Current, or some mythical online service.

My first experience with a format change:
Back around 1986 104.1 FM changed from something boring to heavy metal. I thought the world had split apart.

But, I stuck with the format change and had the hair to prove it. Then had the same reaction when they mellowed out four years later and switched to “college” or “alternative” or “modern” or “progressive” rock.

Again, I stuck with them. And still have a cassette recording of their live broadcast of Too Much Joy in concert.

I stopped there. Not following them into Country or beyond.

10 minutes from now, I expect the FM dial to resemble the current AM dial, with AM completely abandon. Like suburbanites migrating to newer construction further out. All while iPod capacities grow exponentially.

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Ear Travel Tip

This is a note to self: take a decongestant pill an hour before before take-off and landing.

How Stuff Works says it’ll minimize earaches, nausea, and headache. The former has been the cause of some of my worst flying experiences. The latter 2 I’ve got right now. Unpleasant.

Update: My mom said when I was a kid, they’d dose me w/ decongestant 2-3 days before a flight.

Planting Flowers for a Walled Garden

Peter Fleck is asking about content guidelines for Minneapolis’ wireless portal. My initial thoughts…..

Some of you may know I worked on a similar project (same idea, but in the private sector) back around 2000. All the problems we struggled with then are non-existant now (syndication formats, wireless equipment, etc). Since the U of M’s Wireless Communities conferences, I’ve been thinking about what should be available “for free” within a Muni-WiFi network.

I’d rather the city not play favorites or give the impression of playing favorites, so I recommend – only web-accessible city services (pay parking tickets, check on library books, pay water bills, city council meeting dates, opening hours of public buildings, that kinda stuff. For three reasons:

  1. The wireless network is from the city. There’s a real need to increase the accessibility, usability, and visibility of city services online. This will drive that demand.
  2. There’s no good metric to determine why one private publication should be included and not another (i.e. StarTribune.com vs. NorthEastBeat.com vs. MNstories.com vs. etc). Some worthy publication will always be excluded. Better to excluded everyone than continually argue who gets in. Even if the neighborhood groups get to pick what is presented on their nodes – relevance isn’t geographic. Neighborly gatekeepers are still gatekeepers.
  3. Directing energy at improving electronically delivered city services helps all internet using citizens, not just those using the free portion of wifi network and is therefore a more effective use of tax dollars than managing which private publications are within the portal.

In the comments, Peter clarifies some more of the current vision.

I’m holding my original position. No current online publication provides enough community value to actually belong there. If TCDailyPlanet is in the free zone, than PFHyper.com/blog should be in the free zone. As should newpatriot.org and every other Minneapolis-based blog…..and that’s absurd.

Instead, we should give neighborhood groups the skills and tools to publish new and services directly. Otherwise we’re just giving them the choice of vendors that won’t actually serve them.

First Crack 99. Jeremy Raths and the Search for Extraordinary Coffee

We catch up with Twin Cities coffee legend Jeremy Raths and talk about:

  1. Moving The Roastery from a coffee shop in the middle of St. Paul to delivering coffee from an abandon convent.
  2. The history of the speciality coffee market – nationally and locally.
  3. How the coffee market is changing to benefit the small, local, coffee farmer.
  4. The flexibility to choose just the coffees he finds interesting.

Listen to Jeremy Raths and the Search for Extraordinary Coffee [28 min].

Make Me

“I’m what’s next baby! I don’t need them to tell me that, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna pay them to tell me that.” – Chuck Olsen

Which would you choose;

  1. Paying money to site quietly in a chair while someone reads PowerPoint slides and makes your chosen profession sound lame, boring, pointless.
  2. Chasing soap bubbles in the yard.

I don’t go to many conferences. Hardly any. I’ve even dramatically scaled back on the paid, professional events I attend. Yes, it’s because a toddler is far more exciting than most conferences or other professional-type events.

The MinneBar and MinneDemo events are the exception here. They’re invaluable in seeing who’s doing what locally. Plus, they’re informal, free, and full of infectious excitement. Just like a toddler.

Less like a disciplinary action.

Elsewhere:

“…most things they call unconferences are not…Further, I don’t think the kind of unconferences I like are actually growing.”- Dave Winer

“…despite all the odds against it, we actually are growing up.” – Dave Winer

“My big point – 15 minute breaks are too short because I spent two days in a constant state of starting a conversation and then getting herded into a room.” – Dave Slusher

I’m reading J Wynia‘s copy of Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide. While I’m only ~40 pages into it, the model for competing with a 2 year-old is already very clear.