I smell a Revolution

Miserly.
Yes, miserly is the only way I can describe the period of time I grew up in. If you had a good idea and you didn't guard it with great care then some huckster was going to come along and "rip you off, MAN." So considering the cost of patenting there were a lot of ideas that remained locked away. Right?
Now Lawrence Lessig from that progressive West Coast comes along and creates an arena where people can give stuff away for free....and still get credit?! What is this?? There must be communists involved. Didn't they start doing that in the Old Testament at the Tower of Babel -- you know, start learning each others language and start swapping ideas and accomplishing something...and then did god really come along and get mad?
Well you can see that the razor sharp idea of "saving the world from failed sharing" has cut open the sheath of my trained paranoia and greed. Frankly, I'm a little miffed this idea has taken so long to get here. I'm in my office silently screaming at the top of my lungs, "Where in the hazer-mater have you been the first fifty years of my life?!"
Okayokayokay, so all the wrongs in the world take time and good salt-of-the-earth energy to correct and this appears to be an example of just such an occurrence. This is going to require skillful counseling from Nancy or Cari to fully grasp the potential application of what appears to be a very highminded idea.
Gasp....gasp....onto assignment #9

Back to Ohio, or Tin Solders and Nixon's Comin'

The ethos of the Ohio Library Council's mission page was surprisingly candid about what it is like to work in a library and what you represent to the public. I was surprised at the honesty and I imagine I would appreciate knowing the person that wrote for their site. They also had a quote that I liked, regarding Gen Y and how open they are to using libraries and gleaning information in all the ways available. Houston on the other hand was sort of the same old public service hoo-haa that we always hear. It may be accurate, but I thought Ohio was more honest -- more progressive at its core.
The funny thing about the Ohio site was, when I went to the "Library Marketing" tab, I was sent to this dire screen that warned me this was a Reported Attack Site. Another click of my mouse and I was given information that twice in the past 90 days material had come from this site that was damaging. I'm not making this up -- check it out for yourself. I guess they have a freak-O mole that works in tech services or sets up their website...or is trying to sabotage the marketing department. Onto to assignment #7...

Six different Ways to Build Anything

Assignment #5

You know that Progressive Insurance add on TV -- the one that says, "So easy, even a caveman can do it?" This is how I felt about making consecutive requests once I was logged into my library account. Suddenly books would be arriving about the Himalaya and northern Italy with mere pressure from my index finger, but -- the additional point that I discovered is that even though this method shows a seamless efficiency, it may not be the one the caveman prefers to resort to when his back is up and a sabre tooth is fixin' to have him for lunch. The cave man will always "fight like he trains" and this caveman trained at the old ATS airport ticket counter and he wields the green back arrow like some state-of-the-art stone age tool.

But cavemen are nothing if they are not adaptable...so I'd better practice.

It is shocking and a little unsettling to come from a generation where you only had a public voice if you became "famous" for some reason. The world moves in a million capricious directions at once and you didn't know or realize it was happening....until now. Social networking will undoubtedly be a tool for improving the human condition and for polarizing it as well. The question that comes to mind is -- is it okay to have an accessible voice and do I need a public relations specialist to survey everything on the wire? Hmmmm, the jury is out, but I have heard from some old friends the past few months and that is nice.

As for the quiz, I only got 80 % which really tweaked me, but I'm blaming that on having visited "Slice of Life" bakery in Palisade this afternoon, and I think it was a massive sugar crash. It made me suddenly stupid and suspicious....or more stupid and suspicious.

Pandora vs. LastFM

I tried two artists from widely differing genres -- Aimee Mann in the female singer/songwriter category and jazz giant John Coletrane. Pandora was familiar so I started there hoping to find music I was unaware of, but was quickly disappointed that the music suggested was the usual mainstream diggy-di -- nothing new or wide ranging. LastFM on the other hand blew Pandora away for choice in the field. I immediately came across Beth Orton radio when I plugged in Aimee Mann and got a dozen female vocalists I'd never heard of. The visuals were a bonus for me, because I'm am drawn into the life of the artist when I see their face.
Next, I went to music I know and searched John Coltrane, he of course had a station and the first song that came up was one of my too-much-coffee-in-the-morning favorites, "Russian Lullaby." Everything that followed was of the tone I could spend hours cleaning the office to. So Zingo! LastFM is my new contact for music.

Brave New World

I'm constantly working on falling, as Ken Wilbur puts it, "into my own radical Estate, which is Spirit itself -- my own deepest identity and impulse."

With that in mind, this image came from a journey I created in May 2009. It sets the stage for this assignment and blogathon.