Dia Media

Comments Off … Radio Silence

by

Drawing from my daily project where I draw first thing in the morning before turning my phone off.

I just turned comments off on this blog. If you want to get in touch use the contact page, or visit us at goodybank

No doubt I should, and likely will, simply re-direct this site at some point, but for now there *is* some trickle of juice, a smidgen of value that keeps me hanging on.

Also I want to transfer over some of that g0ogle juice over to the new site, once I find make the time. I wrote about time once or twice.

There is a brutal efficiency in just lopping off comments that is quite satisfying and helps literally retrieve time, by no longer moderating spam.

I’m going to write an article about what to do with old sites, re-design, re-align (hey wait I already wrote that in 2014!) but it’s 2019 baby and times have changed. Several projects have shown their fragility (2 clients, 3 ours) and I’ve noticed many sites in general that really need re-vamping, so I think the time is ripe to write about what to do when faced with the perils of obsolescence (also written in 2014). But tearing that bandaid off is hard. I know. That’s why this site is still here. For now.

Soon Come. Soon Come.

2017 Word of The Year

by

AppreciateFor the last 4 or 5 years I choose a Word of The Year to represent the year. This is as an alternative to New Year’s Resolutions. I “organize” a small group of women that meet a few times a year to reflect upon this word.

It operates as a touchstone of sorts. You usually only choose one word, and then in June, if you decide the word isn’t appropriate, you can select another one.
This year, 2 words spoke to me right away:) and I decided to allow them. One more orientated, but not exclusively to my personal life, and the other towards business.

They are:

Appreciate – Personal
Consistency – Business

In terms of consistency for business I specifically mean things that range from the boring things that get overwhelming if you leave them to grow dust in the corner of the filing cabinet…; and also the exciting stuff that fires up your little grey cells at the beginning of the year with enthusiasm and joy but also has a tendency to fizzle out as you realize and become aware, that , hey , getting to that exciting goals requires breaking it down into micro tasks, that are, well, boring?
<ul>
<li>Get book-keeping / accounting on auto-pilot (more or less)</li>
<li>Blog more often and consistently.</li>
<li>Set up newsletter and</li>
<li>Start a mailing list. I have one, but it’s a spreadsheet that needs pruning and attention.</li>
</ul>
I mean – creating a LIST. Develop, grow a new audience through one of those little annoying pop-ups that convert so well – except I will have to be clever and figure out how to make them obvious and subtle at the same time, and probably not pop-up, at least on mobile, that annoys me too much — you?

Yawn.
Stretch.
Nap.

Return to task at hand.

To wit I’ve now got a list of ideas for blog posts that are all more business / client orientated. Except for this one . It’s geared to the fellow creatives out there who also wear the entrepeneurial/business cap, and might just want to know what inspires me to keep pushing through the pixels.

I appreciate you. There’s a lot to slog through in the digital landscape, and you’ve taken the time to read about my word of the year. Thanks.

[ Side Notes:

I originally learned about WOTY from the marvellous Christine Kane (previously singer/songwriter now business maven/coach).
Last Year’s <a href=”http://diamedia.net/2015/12/22/end-of-the-year-lists/”>WOTY</a> ]

End of Year Lists

by

Next year my lists will be all hand-lettered.

 

The Winter Solstice is here and with it Mercury Retrograde. Although the latter comes with a little more woo woo (then again thinking about Stonehenge, perhaps they are equally wooish), they both offer the opportunity for reflection and planning. In what is now an annual tradition, here’s my end of the year business list for 2016.

Annual Digital Business Goals

1. Blog more often and on a consistent basis.

You, me, everyone with a stake in this interwebs game. My personal goal is 27 posts in 2017. I’m getting that number counting 2 posts per month , with an extra three thrown in for good measure/luck as the year ends in a 7:)

I reckon it takes me a week to think up a topic, and begin a rough draft (outline format) and then another week to flesh it all out with pretty pictures. Given my profession, I tend to overdue the images bit – i.e.: they’re definitely not just grabbed from the internet and stuck in there. Even when they are plucked out of the ethernet, they are always altered. In short, can take some time for the image aspect of the post, this post proving the exception to the rule.

Whatever your current blogging schedule / post count is, why don’t you try setting a goal to ramp up output in 2017? Mine is a four-fold ambitious increase, but 20% is good too. There’s a lot of debate about long post vs short posts, that’s a topic for another post (!), but the importance of consistency cannot be overstressed. Google definitely favours new content.

2. Review All Social Media Accounts.

Keep, exterminate or even, gasp, add more? This year I blogged for 153 days in a row as part of a public art project (A fictional blog set in 1938, I don’t count it towards business blogging) where I focused solely on twitter as an outreach platform. Yet, I noticed way more likes on the instagram end of things even though I didn’t post anything there (my account is dormant — it was all other folks sharing). Last Saturday, I took a delightful calligraphy workshop  at Fox and Flourish.  The owner Christina had a hashtag, but noted she mainly uses instagram.  Both of these got me wondering if I should (despite loathing this word) reboot the account.The value of said likes etc is also up for debate, and that too is a topic for another post.

3. Start a Newsletter / Develop A Mailing List

This is the year we too, will offer one of those annoying pop-ups to subscribe to the newsletter full of unicorns and other magical wisdom.

4.Plan to unplug

Every year I attempt to conquer my inbox and get down to the mythical state of “inbox zero” (coined by Merlin Mann). I do, and then a few days later the breeding begins. This year, I will plan to conquer the inbox every quarter at a minimum. Also to unsubscribe from e-mail lists that no longer align with my personal or business goals. Sometimes the newsletters are great, and yet they can represent a pressure to perform, to be, to buy into something….after a while you realize it ain’t gonna happen.

Creativity comes from boredom and doing nothing. It’s been proven. I can’t find the source quote, but intuitively you already know this.

5. Nap more.

Ok, this one’s not digital, at least not yet.

Cheers, and Happy 2017!

Should you D-I-Y when it comes to your website?

by

the prep

Should you take the Do It Yourself Approach?

First, a story about one of the ways I’m completely into D-I-Y.

I spent a relaxing Sunday evening making homemade spearmint lip balm. The recipe is at the end of this post – patched together from various sites – and based on what I had on hand. I was doing it as an experiment. Here’s what I found out:

  1. It was much simpler and not as fussy as I thought it might be. Essentially (pun intended) you slowly melt together the “carrier” oils with the beeswax, add a few drops of your choice of essential oil, pour out into container and allow to solidify. And voila – you are done!
  2. That said, gathering the ingredients is part of the process: I had spearmint oil and coconut oil on hand, and had to go buy the almond oil and beeswax. I did not have a double boiler, so I improvised.
  3. I only purchased 2 metal tins to start with, not having a clear idea of how easy it would be to make, nor of the volume /proportions. I have an immense amount of almond oil leftover and so just yesterday went back and bought 10 more tins:)

Ultimately, it was quite a pleasurable experience. I like the mindset of being an alchemist and can see myself tinkering some with flavours, and labels (!) in the future.

Did I save money?
On the ingredients cost per volume, and not counting my time, then yes, no doubt. With the leftovers and the newly acquired extra tins, the plan for this coming Sunday is to make some more lip balm. [ Once of course, the fruit cakes are taken care of — the fruits have been soaking in rum for 3 weeks 🙂 ] This increased my costs a wee bit.

I purchased the beeswax and almond oil  at the delightful Soap Dispensary  (where you can refill many things to your heart’s content). The same size tin of pre-made lip balm cost $6.

My costs were: $2.50 per tin, $7.00 for the almond oil and I already had the coconut oil and essential oil on hand. Those probably cost $12 and $14. So say $35.50. or roughly $40 with tax. I don’t know how many tins I could make with the whole lot, but I suspect at least about 30 offhand. Who knows, maybe 60. I’m a newbie. So substantial savings on the ingredients front. My time, research, purchase and make = 2-3 hours about. Without labels. That will probably be a black hole time-suck altering the course of the universe.

THE STEPS INVOLVED

  1. Research what I have to do (find a gadzillion blogs right away – process quick and easy)
  2. Purchase ingredients and containers
  3. Set aside time and make

It happens to be the holiday season, so if you’re on my nice list – keep an eye out;)…

the finished product
The Finished Product -Spearmint Lip Balm

 

How does this relate to a D-I-Y your business website?
3 factors to consider:

1. Budget

If you have a very small budget, then of course this goes without saying. Go with something like WordPress.com (WP – my first choice) or SquareSpace where you don’t have to mess around too much.If you’re selling products, Shopify is a good choice. (They also have a plug-in for WP). The reason I would recommend WordPress.com first is that if your business takes off, then your database can be readily imported into a WordPress.org site. The .org means that it is a self-hosted website and that it can look however you want, do whatever you want it do:)

2. You enjoy it and take pleasure in learning.

Building your own custom(ized) website involves a blend of tech and design. Do you enjoy opening up Photoshop and tweaking your images? Do you enjoy figuring out what’s under the hood? Do the words HTML5, php, css excite you? Then D-I-Y might be for you.

3. How many steps will it take and does it really save you money?

Yes, to the latter, if like me and my lip balm, you don’t count your time. How much? That depends on who you would hire to execute your site otherwise. You can get quotes from $500 to $50,000 for what appear to be the same thing.  In general, you get what you pay for, and at the higher end, (which of course can also have more zeroes tacked on at the end), you are not buying a “website”, but a relationship with a company that will hopefully help you grow and expand your business, and, they take care of all the details for you. They might even suggest ways for your business to prosper that you hadn’t considered.

THE STEPS INVOLVED

  1. Research what free/cheap platforms are out there.
  2. Purchase domain name ($7-20)
  3. Decide on platform and theme — buy a premium theme if you want to go fancy ($70-$150)
  4. Enter your content.

The last point can is deceptive and can be also eat up a lot of time. Even though you don’t need to know how to code, you do have to: write content, write headings, style content, take/buy photographs, edit photographs…not to mention the marketing angle SEO and all whatnot. Also it can be frustrating if you don’t know how to use the CMS (content management system) that well, so have patience with that part. And remember that you are going to have it end up being like the template — not something custom.

But basically it can be done, if, of course, being much more time consuming than making lip balm…;)

On the flip side, if you are looking at setting up a WordPress site yourself, I just got an email from iThemes pointing out the over 80 (EIGHTY!) essential WordPress website owner checklist tasks that are involved in setting a up a WordPress Site.

I got exhausted just reading it, and basically I know what I’m doing (ahem).
Of course the process can be streamlined when you know what you’re doing and certain steps eliminated if you pay for certain services.
Leaving perhaps a mere 60 steps:)

Take Away Thoughts:

1. TIME. What is your time worth? And, cliches being oft repeated truths, where is your time best spent?

2. FUN. If you don’t take pleasure in either the tech or the visual…then DIY isn’t for you.

3. FOCUS. You’re using tinkering with your website as an excuse to delay the process of actually running/launching your business.
Even if you can do something it doesn’t always mean you should. Case in point – we are quite efficient when it comes to using Illustrator and really enjoy it most of the time, but for relatively quick and dirty icons etc, we will turn to Getty images (iStock) or other sources first, and then modify rather than create an illo from scratch.

Ultimately it might come down to this:

Is this a hobby or a business? If it’s a hobby, then probably the D-I-Y (or hiring your neighbour’s daughter who lives in the basement) approach is the way to go.

Or perhaps if your are a small start-up and you’re not sure of your metrics. Start a free blog, write about your stuff, see if there’s an audience for what you are doing / selling.

If it’s a business that’s already underway, unless you have a keen interest in learning and doing the tech and design aspect of things, it’s probably best to hire a pro. (ahem:)

=============================

Lip Balm Recipe I used:

  • Approx 2 TBS beeswax*
  • 3 TBS coconut oil
  • 3 TBS almond oil
  • 6-10 drops spearmint essential oil.

On low-med heat, melt the beeswax and oils together with a chopstick.
When melted, remove from heat and add a few drops of spearmint essential oil.

Poured into the 2 lip balm 1/4 oz containers and the rest into a leftover small mason jam jar. Let set. Took about 2-3 hours before it seemed fully solid.

Notes: Approx 2 TBS beeswax – I cheaped out and bought the beeswax in bulk – so chopping off a hunk that more or less resembled a tablespoon was the truth of the matter. For the next batch, I have splurged on the beeswax pellets.
The essential oil I had on hand was spearmint. Any flavour will do. Some say it can be damaging for your lips. I like the scent. Also, the adding of drops is not an exact sciene.

A Few Lip Balm Recipe Links:

2 (yes 2) ingredient cosmetics from the venerable David Suzuki Foundation – DIY Lip Balm & More

And 2 other semi randomly chosen links:

Every Day Roots DIY Lip Balm – I like the graphic/drawing they’re using

Natural Skin Care Junkie DIY Kits – extensive and detailed list of ingredients, like myrrh – going on my to do list for sure. Myrrh – yum

End of the Year Lists

by

Use a Pen

My mother always made lists. I remember seeing them on the glass top of the side table beside the ashtray and coffee cup. They were lists for what you might expect — groceries, chores, events planning— and there were also more obscure lists, that might not have computed in my 6 year old brain, but their quixotic meanings do resonate now, as I make lists about the same mundane things and also more random notes that help me remember things at 4am. They are obscure and yet the writing down of the words —enchantress, mountain, yellow— while meaningless at a casual glance, they will help me remember in the morning to research more about Ada Lovelace, to finish the concept proposal I’m working on and to look for a yellow scarf. I saw a woman with my skin tone wearing a yellow scarf, and the lust for the perfect yellow accessory was born. Perhaps Santa will oblige.

I’m a big fan of lists. Written in pen. On anything, the back of an envelope, a bill, recycled, reused, you name it. Digital lists are important (we use basecamp as software of choice for project management) and yet the pen in hand has a kind of transmission to the brain that feels more solid. Not just an illusion, cognitive science studies endorse this perspective.1

The activity in the North Pole is almost at peak energy, and the nice and naughty lists are no doubt done. But there’s still time for some lists.

Here are 2 of my lists for the end of the year:

Annual Business Planning / Website Maintenance

  1. Domain Names
    Check your domain name’s expiry and mark the renewal date in your calendar. I let a domain name go past the expiry date this year (long story – old email address that didn’t send me the renewal) and had to cough up a staggering $250 to renew it. (the average price of a domain is 15 bucks). It was worth it, but a costly lesson. We have a gadzillion domain names, so this year I’m going to make a spreadsheet to keep track. Some will also be let go of. Hopefully not to vultures.
  2. Schedule Back-ups and Updates
    Set up a schedule (if you don’t have someone doing this for you – ahem:) to backup your website on a schedule, and to keep plugins updated on a regular basis. We do this on pretty much a weekly basis. Note the qualifier “pretty much” – this year it will be on the calendar scheduled on a specific day and time.
  3. Plan to Blog
    Put it on your calendar. Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly…. Make a master list of blog topics in advance. I started doing this at the end of November, and it’s been very useful. Also going onto Basecamp to keep track. With reminders!

 
And to contrast the practical to-dos, here’s a deceptively simple and yet ingenious way to consider planning et al.

Annual Word of the Year.

Christine Kane2 is one of several, but I believe the first, to introduce this concept. Instead of making New Year’s Resolutions, which are usually too big and rarely kept, choose one word to guide you for the year. The first time I tried this I chose “balance” and coincidentally ended up with a flu that gave me an inner ear thing and I had dizziness for months. It almost threw me off the pursuit, but in the end the word did help me prioritize my life in ways that felt more in balance. This year (2015) is was Value. Hence I did willingly part with the dough to renew a domain name for my artwork, as I decided it was valuable on so many levels.

  1. Get a fresh blank piece of paper, or nice shiny graphed notebook.
  2. Make a list of words.
  3. Let them dance around in your head. See which ones create “sparks of joy”. Read Marie Kondos’ book on decluttering for more on that concept3.
  4. Choose.
  5. Enjoy

Text Neck & Fresh Perspectives

by


Everyone time I see a senior citizen who is seriously bent over, I immediately roll my shoulders back, take a deep breath and look up. Now I’m noticing very young people with this same posture. This is anecdotally of course, but on the bus, the skytrain, walking sitting on a bench, in a cafe, restaurant…in short pretty much everywhere.

How will we evolve?

I imagine there has been a rise in massage therapist, physios, chiros, and other practictioners in treating folks with neck issues. I blame it all on the smartphone.

My monitor recently got fried. There was an electrical failure in the building, which is a designated heritage building (code for old and wonky) and right in the middle of a deadline….
[a post about leaving things too close to the deadline is for another moment]

Blink. No Fade. Just Black.

I had to adjust. There was a deadline. So I had to, gasp, use only my laptop.

My programmer tells me that what’s happened in an old and wonky electrical is that there are frequent minor power surges, and that zaps my fancy schmancy power surge protector, and gradually over time, it depletes the protector, until one day, kaput.

I haven’t yet purchased a new monitor.

Why? Besides time, research and all that jazz. Primarily because I’ve enjoyed experimenting with only using the relatively small screen, (a macbook pro retina) and adjusting the position depending on where I’m working. So at the studio it’s perched upon a clear stand, with and external keyboard plugged in, and here, at the pseudo-office, it’s on a bright pink laptop stand.

What I’ve noticed is three things:

  1. My neck feels better. I think it’s the variation of posture that the flexibility of where to sit with a laptop allows, brings more constant micro adjustments. The big monitor is big and usually just sits there in one position.
  2. My mental focus is a bit sharper. With the big screen, I have the luxury of multi-tasking, having many projects open. I can do that on the laptop, but the clutter gets a bit too much, so I start closing tabs down. I’m going to retain this as a habit.
  3.  Many websites are designed for big screens, even if they have a mobile friendly site. I was on the phone with a big company getting some support and they kept referring me to look in the upper right hand corner, but I couldn’t find the link they were pointing out. Eventually I realized that was because it was outside the viewport of my screen. And this was a big company, with lots of bucks to spend on mobile responsiveness…

I’m not going to delay the purchase of a big screen forever, it’s pretty much essential for coping with 156 layers in photoshop, etc etc. But for now it’s been a surprisingly welcome shift in my viewpoint. Also, it’s a good reminder to step back, raise my head up high and look at things with a fresh perspective, with less noise.

I’m welcoming fresh perspectives lately, in order to change, to be bored, to be un-bored, to shift, to develop better habits, or even to embrace some bad habits—it’s all about making, not judging.

“Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.” —Corita Kent
(also attributed to John Cage, but he has enough press.) From “A List of Rules for Art Students”. Sister Corita Kenta, circa 1968

[P.S. I’ve done it too, texting while walking down the street, being mesmerized by the little screen. It’s a habit I’ve broken. I encourage you to do the same. And, it goes without saying, biking and texting (WTF?). Driving & texting is for _________< /endrant>]

If I Could Save Time in A Bottle…

by

One of the biggest obstacles I face with blogging is wrestling with time. Perhaps quantum physicists or master yogis have figured out that time is an illusion, and even have wonderful equations or quotes to relay this concept, but for the rest of us mere mortals, time pretty much goes by the clock, and lately, it seems like it zips by at the speed of light.

Getting around to blogging, as important as everyone knows it is – to growing your website presence, conveying your expertise and values…:) – can be tough in that it’s hard to carve out the time.

Scene from X-Men Time

In X-Men Days of Future Past, in arguably the best scene of the film, Quicksilver is shown running through the kitchen of the Pentagon in uber slow-mo motion. Jim Croce’s “If I Could Save Time in Bottle” song plays at normal speed as Quicksilver dashes about. It was brilliant, funny and sad at the same time.

It inspired me to re-consider time and some techniques for putting it in a bottle.

  1. Relax. Take Some Time. Have Fun.

    Even though the heat is on, bullets are firing, Quicksilver is taking time to do kooky, goofy things, like taste a spoon of sauce.Instead of thinking of blogging as a must-do, high-pressure, homework kind of task, start re-framing it as time to brainstorm a few ideas, be a little goofy, have a little fun.

  2. Put on the Big Girl Goggles.

    Peter (Quicksilver) wears (swimming?) goggles as he prances around the kitchen to protect his eyes from debris. I like the the gesture. Donning these goggles signfies he’s about to take action. Lesson – put on the goggles, keep yourself protected from distractions and get going.

  3. Once in the rhythm, pay attention to the details.

    The details are important – Peter makes sure to cross the arms of the security guards in just the right way so that the bullets fall away harmlessly.

  4. Set a Time Limit.

    I agree and must write for 30/45/60minutes, or 3 minutes, if you’re Quicksilver and can get the job done—micro-blogging anyone?  Then I can go do all that other “important stuff.”

Scene from X-Men

5. Publish or Perish and Don’t Forget to Smile.

​I love  the last bit is him picking the bullets out of the air and moving them methodically to the right or left,  and then he grins.
This task is blogging, I’m sitting in a chair (oh – Terra standing desk, wherefore art thou?), my feet planted on the ground, I’m not in a high-adrenaline, sci-fi scene, so if Peter can smile, I can smile too.

 

OTHER

​

​Anchor

​I was feeling the (self-imposed) pressure to blog and rather than choose from a list of “7 Tips for ……” subjects, I thought about what had recently left an impression on me. Netflix (Canada’s) release of the X-Men film and that scene had done just that. I decided to use that scene to frame or anchor this post.

What inspires you?

Set goals and deadlines

Be ambitious but realistic.
eg: 2 x / month  – not 2 x week. My last post was in March 2015, so twice a month is already double the volume. Once every 2 weeks is a stretch goal. Once I get there, I can revisit the goal.

Bullet Points

Begin with draft posts that lay out ideas in bullet points. This is less overwhelming than having to flush out a full idea in whole sentences and long paragraphs.

30 Day Tweet Challenge – #30DaysofMobile

by

Yesterday was the 1st day of Spring. Hooray!
With that I felt the energy of Spring and came up with a mini 30 day challenge – which is to research and find information about all things mobile (smartphone adoption, mobile patterns, mobile web…) and tweet about them, at least one tweet every day for the next 29 days (yesterday counted as Day 1). From stats to marketing insights to scientific research….

Midway I hope to compile a compilation post,  and at the end of the thirty days, a summary of what I’ve learned about the “state of the mobile web in 2014” with a focus on Canada.

Day 1: “Mobile used to be the future of business … used to be a trend. Now it’s the norm.” http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231832 via @EntMagazine

Day 2: Six in 10 Canadians access the Internet via a mobile device http://cira.ca/factbook/2014/the-canadian-internet.html … #30DaysofMobile

I’m going to use the hashtag #30DaysofMobile. Follow me @diamedia

If you like, tweet me and ask me a question about something mobile and I’ll see if I can find something of interest about it, and I’ll tweet you an answer.

Happy Spring!

Death, iPhones and Celebrity

by

Death

RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman. At first it seemed the Super Bowl coverage eclipsed your passing, but no more. You will be well remembered at the awards, I trust.
Your death was  a tragedy. I read a blog post that said your death affects us depending on our circumstances. So though, of course, I barely knew you, you are of a similar generation, and thus every man’s death diminishes me.

My iPhone 3Gs (yes you read that correctly 3G) is dying a slow prolonged death. First it started with quirky behaviours, and obstinance. It refused to download certain Apps, telling me the OS was too old. Then the alarms would all disappear all at once and I would no longer know what to do with my time. Then it refused to charge. It will still connect to iTunes and so all is backed up. This happened on the same day that PSH died, which is already four days ago, and in terms of iPhone life is surely a ridiculously long time to wait to do something about this death.

I delayed as it came to life on Monday evening and charged to 100%. So Tuesday was a half-day of use. It has not sprung back yet. Hope does spring eternal.

iPhones

At the same time I’m about to beta-test an app I’ve been collaborating on (an art project) and that means I had 3 iPhones (4s) lined up all charging at the same time, showing exactly the same time on the screen. Soon they all merged, like women whose menstrual cycles follow the same schedule and the green bar showed 100% full.

The time was completely in sync as well. Soon everyone will be on the same schedule. Except those few analog hold outs who wear wrist watches, with those long arrow things, I don’t what they’re called.En Guard!

Celebrity

Facebook is 10. Everyone is getting their 15 minutes of fame with those videos. I want to say they are cheesy, but that doesn’t quite encompass the spirit of the thing. Andy Warhol is probably delighted and begging to come back soon embodied as an iPhone 6. Instead of Siri we will hear his delicate timbre dictating where to go and who to hang with.

Decisions

Forced Obsolescence. Obsolescence is a hobby of mine. I did a year long blog (every single day kids) about stuff that was obsolete.

This iPhone 3Gs was obsolete about 2 years ago, but still I held on to it. It worked. Crappy pictures, but I’ve got an obsolete Nikon D5000 for those. Texting was fine. Talking (don’t do much of that). Emails – managed to juggle 5 accounts. Apps – fitness tracking check. financial tracking check. miscellaneous crap to waste time on check.

I also resisted because on our shared business plan, the other phone still has 5 months to go before an upgrade. And here in Canada, it’s only very recently that the switch has gone from 3 to 2 year contracts. Even that seems like too much time.

I like pushing things to their edge. I will repurpose the 3Gs into something. Only the battery is dead.

 

The diaspora – by nature complex

by

There is a rich, detailed article at MotherBoard “What Happened to the Facebook Killer? It’s Complicated” talking about Diaspora: The Community-run, Distributed Social-network , how the combination of its very low initial  budget ($200,000) compared to Go0gle’s billions, the tragic death of one of its founders, and the scale of reach Facebook had reached, amongst many others, as factors that have influenced its failure to take over FB. The project is still very much alive, however I can tell you in one, ok two, points why it won’t reach millions.

1. Too much focus on geekdom. The Big Bang Theory might be a very popular show, but most folks aren’t interested getting their hands dirty. Who wants to install a server?

2. Too much choice. When you go to the diasporaproject.org and click sign-up it directs you to a tsuanami of pod choices to join. They call it an ecosystem of pods.

I would like a social media system that offers full control over privacy and guarantee of respect of individual and collective privacy. I fully respect the impetus behind Diaspora. And I’m disappointed it hasn’t taken over as a viable new model. Especially in the light of FB’s recent privacy transgressions in Europe. (FB recently rolled out a facial recognition system that tags your photos by automatically suggesting names. They have since suspended facial recognition in Europe – where presumably folks have a longer memory of how data in the wrong hands is no laughing matter.)

But who will provide such a utopic system?

The MB article concludes on an optimistic note: “As the Internet shifts to our pockets and everywhere else, it’s right to be skeptical of those who promise to be the next big thing, no matter how big that thing is. What we do know is that the new new thing is always right around the corner. It probably won’t be Diaspora. And it probably won’t resemble Facebook. But it will probably be better. It will need to be, because it’s our choice after all. These things are nothing without us.”

 

Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others. —Orson Welles

The Vault