engaging compassionately

The conference is over. Organizers loved it. Participants loved it. Basically, it was an outright success.

While all of this was happening organizationally, the impact on me personally was far beyond what i ever envisioned. I didn’t attend very many talks (surprise) but i met people who totally shook up my world. In particular, i connected with two people who threw me for a loop. Through interacting, i found certain dormant characteristics of my personality reemerging, for better and worse. Their suppression had been a coping mechanism and to see them come out again was a total surprise. Here i was engaging with two people quite intensely and loving it, remembering how much i love connecting and how much i miss compassionate people who engage through their soul. Genuine positive energy.

I fell in love again this weekend. Not with someone else, but with myself… with people in general… and with life. Two good souls shook me up and made me see things from a different vantage point. I needed that rejuvination more than i even realized. Namaste.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Friendster Power Games

Jonathan Van Gieson has a list of Friendster Power Games that is just wonderful:

Top Friendster Power Games:

The Pre-Rejection
You just signed up for Friendster, and you notice that I’ve been using it for a month, and didn’t invite you. Perhaps we’re just not as close as you thought we were.

The Delayed Approval
You can see by my profile that I was active yesterday. You sent me a “new friend request” three days ago. I haven’t approved it. Maybe it’s because I’m waiting to see if anyone worthwhile signs up to be your friend before I commit to having you on my friends list.

The Unreciprocated Testimonial
You wrote me a very nice testimonial three weeks ago, yet your page still displays the pathetic notice: “No testimonials yet. You can add the first!” Gosh, it looks like you’re more interested in me than I am in you, doesn’t it?

The Mexican Standoff
You’re one of John Smith’s friends. I’m one of John Smith’s friends. We know each other, we can clearly see each other in the “John Smith’s Friends” page, and yet neither of us has attempted to add the other as a friend. It’s a battle for status, and the first person to send the new friend request will forever be the loser.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Google cache raises copyright concerns

Google cache raises copyright concerns is an interesting news.com critique of what happens when copyright lawyers realize what Google is doing. [When will we get that our copyright/IP laws need some major revising for the digital age??]

…

As seemingly benign and beneficial as it is, some Web site operators take issue with the feature and digitally prevent Google from recording their pages in full by adding special code to their sites. Among other arguments, they say that cached pages at Google have the potential to detour traffic from their own site, or, at worst, constitute trademark or copyright violations. In the case of an out-of-date news page in Google’s cache, a Web publisher could even face legal troubles because of false data remaining on the Web but corrected at its own site.

For this reason, search experts and copyright lawyers expect the issue to come up in a court of law, joining the leagues of copyright disputes that have surfaced because of technology innovation.

…

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

friendster in horoscopes

Cultural familiarity with Friendster has reached the point where horoscope writers are using it as commonly understood language. From the Seattle Weekly:

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
Whether you sign on to Friendster or just lay it out on a piece of paper, I want you to list all the people you know this week, and the people they know (that you know about). It’s important that you see how you affect the world, without even trying-just by being. Everything you do is rippled out through your friends, to their friends, to their friends, and so on. Get my drift yet, Libra? I’m doing my best to counteract your absolutely false self-denigration. All I’m trying to say, really, is there’s no way you could not matter, no matter how hard you tried. You’ve already irrevocably changed our world-almost entirely for the better. We, the friends of your friends’ friends, thank you. Now thank yourself.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

FRinBL 6

rands [15 March 2003] – commentary from various technical users, contemplating what can be done with Friendster data and whether or not there is a purpose to returning

“‘friendster has already came and went with my crowd.’

I find this comment interesting because I think it’s a flaw in the friendster model… there’s no reason for me to go back when I’ve got all my friends linked. Sure, I can wander the friend tree, but they don’t make it easy… ”

tourist sans camera [26 June 2003] – “Friendster Introduced Me To My Own Friends”

“Here’s where the Internet transcends reality: it’s like each of your friends through a party, and you got to meet and talk to each person there, and were subsequently invited to each of their parties.”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

blogging friendster research

Most are aware that i’ve been watching Friendster’s evolution with a keen interest, asking questions and reflecting. An academic analysis of what’s going on is by no means ready (although it’s definitely brewing). All the same, i realized that i should start consolidating the material that i’ve been reading, start throwing out a few ideas and give myself a public play space for reflecting on what’s floating in my head and showing up in conversations .

Thus, introducing:

connected selves:
and the march towards digital social networks

Print Friendly, PDF & Email