Nice anecdote about “paying your dues”. I can relate to many of the feelings expressed. -Waveybrain
Tonight, as I was cleaning out an old file cabinet, I came across a resume from early on in my career. As I read through my laughable list of achievements and expertly enhanced job descriptions I couldn’t help but be taken back.
Back to when I was just getting started paying my dues.
I wasn’t…
It was a big week for social networks.
But the term itself seems to have lost some of it’s impact. Over time we’ve come to associate social networks with Mark Zuckerberg, Aaron Sorkin and blue pixelated Fonzy thumbs.
This afternoon, at our Foo Health event in Boston, Nicholas Christakis broke me out of that metaphorical mental rut with a session on the role and impact our social networks play in our personal health, happiness and achievements.
As he spoke, and as the group of participants questioned and expanded upon his ideas, I was struck with just how fortunate I am to be a part of the social networks that have come to shape my personal and professional lives.
It’s been a long week of travel for me, thus the slow posting here. As the events of the week wash over me on this return flight, I can’t help but trace the network connections of my past to seat 8C. From my beginnings in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon to my life in the bay area. From my first job as a file clerk to the work I get to do now. At each step, the networks I navigated shaped the ideas I pursued and opportunities afforded me.
In this TED talk from 2010, Nicholas breaks down the roll of social networks we participate within and the impact they have on us. Near the end, he compares the base material of these networks to carbon. Depending on the connections made between the same carbon molecules graphite OR diamonds could emerge.
The same is true of our personal social networks. We all have the same base material, it’s how we connect that material that makes all the difference.
Great food for thought and required weekend viewing.
Very interesting talk and analytics of social networks. Though I agree with his final statements about fostering social networks because of it’s strengths and upsides, I don’t know which “strategy” makes more sense; the person more on the fringe who’s cautious and less easy to decipher or analyze, or the person who ‘weaves’ a cluster and becomes embedded in it. I think the problem with being so transparent is that it makes it too easy for those “think tanks” creating these cluster maps to study and or manipulate their data-aka, YOU. -Waveybrain
Here is a talk about “The Coming War on General Purpose Computation”. Cory Doctorow explains the potential for policies and lobbying surrounding personal computing and networking being as directionless and punitive as the so-called, “War on Drugs”. It’s an interesting talk about a subject that not enough people think of or are totally ignorant about. Beware: he uses some techy terms like, “DRM” (http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/digital-rights-management); some of which are worth researching if you aren’t familiar with them. It’s a brave new world after all.
-Waveybrain
Much has been said, written and posted about SOPA over the last month or so. But what I found refreshing and enlightening about this talk from Cory Doctorow was the lengths to which he went to frame SOPA in it’s real historical context. The title of this talk says it all “The Coming War on General Purpose Computation”.
A few excerpts:
The proponents of SOPA, the Motion Picture Association of America, circulated a memo, citing research that SOPA would probably work, because it uses the same measures as are used in Syria, China, and Uzbekistan, and they argued that these measures are effective in those countries, and so they would work in America, too!
It may seem like SOPA is the end game in a long fight over copyright, and the Internet, and it may seem like if we defeat SOPA, we’ll be well on our way to securing the freedom of PCs and networks. But as I said at the beginning of this talk, this isn’t about copyright, because the copyright wars are just the 0.9 beta version of the long coming war on computation. The entertainment industry were just the first belligerents in this coming century-long conflict. We tend to think of them as particularly successful — after all, here is SOPA, trembling on the verge of passage, and breaking the internet on this fundamental level in the name of preserving Top 40 music, reality TV shows, and Ashton Kutcher movies!
It doesn’t take a science fiction writer to understand why regulators might be nervous about the user-modifiable firmware on self-driving cars, or limiting interoperability for aviation controllers, or the kind of thing you could do with bio-scale assemblers and sequencers. Imagine what will happen the day that Monsanto determines that it’s really… really… important to make sure that computers can’t execute programs that cause specialized peripherals to output organisms that eat their lunch… literally. Regardless of whether you think these are real problems or merely hysterical fears, they are nevertheless the province of lobbies and interest groups that are far more influential than Hollywood and big content are on their best days, and every one of them will arrive at the same place — “can’t you just make us a general purpose computer that runs all the programs, except the ones that scare and anger us? Can’t you just make us an Internet that transmits any message over any protocol between any two points, unless it upsets us?”
So we’re here, at logger heads, ostensibly arguing about piracy when the underlying fear of these disruptive, connective, enabling devices extends far beyond the gilded stars of Hollywood boulevard.
And it’s just the beginning.
Which is why Cory’s talk at 28C3 is required weekend viewing on BRYCE DOT VC.
Some sage advice for entrepreneurs about leadership. -Waveybain
I came across a quote from Brad Burnham @ USV the other day that rings true with me:
The last thing I want to hear from a founder is “what do you think I should do”. Markets change, competitors emerge, technology fails. There are lots of reasons why a start-up might need to change…
