I’m Over Here Now [FAQ]
As of last Friday – the only place to get regular updates from me is here at...
I’m Over Here Now [FAQ]
As of last Friday – the only place to get regular updates from me is here at rizzn.com. Change your email address for me to guesswho@rizzn.com.
Unfortunately, given the amount of buzz going on around the tubes at the moment, I can’t publicly address or answer questions regarding the nature of my departure for my former position. None-the-less, at this point I don’t bear anyone any ill will, and still treasure the time I’ve spent blogging the last fifteen months or so.
It was a great opportunity, and a great learning experience to see what the media world looks like from atop a mountain instead of always being in the unseen trenches.
The questions I’ve seen that I can address and clear up is what’s on the horizon for me next (or at least I can attempt to clear that up).
What Am I Going to be Doing Next?
That’s a real good question. As many of you know, I’m in the midst of a move to Dallas that’s set to conclude the 27th of this month. As such, I’m very interested in what sort of opportunities I’m going to find there.
What’s even more interesting has been the flood of very cool and enticing offers that I’ve seen in just the last few days. This is a brand new experience for me – generally, I’m used to scraping and clawing for every consulting gig I can come across. Now that word is spreading that I’m a free agent, I’m getting people actually trying to compete to employ my talents.
This, needless to say, is awesome, and contributes to my already over-sized ego.
Because I have a glut of opportunity now doesn’t mean I’m not interested in your proposal. Email me with it <guesswho@rizzn.com>. All reasonable offers will be considered (“Let’s cut a deal!”).
For other ways to contact me, just hit up the site. There’s a ton of contact links on it now.
This Site Looks Really Different, By The Way
Yeah, thanks for noticing. This whole thing is a custom coding job I’ve been slowly evolving for the last several months, with a bunch of major additions that I’ve been slipping into the background over the last two weeks in anticipation of this move (yeah, I sorta saw some writing on the wall).
As many of you know (if you’ve been paying attention at all), I tried to launch a web series called “TENtech,” which was a great idea in theory. Problem was, it’s Christmas-time. People are busy. Out of the many contributors that I had signed on to help out, only a few of them ended up being able to contribute.
So as a result, I’m going back to the basics. My favorite thing to do over the last fifteen months was the interview podcast series. I’m going to do the same thing here. I’m going to interview interesting people on camera, most likely via remote video, and display the raw feeds here on Rizzn.com.
On that note, if you’re a CEO or in the PR for a cool tech company and you have a webcam, drop me a line, and let’s get you on the show. I have a ton of subscribers, and I’ve been told I’m pretty fun to talk to.
I don’t have the feeds set up yet, but if you’re subscribed to any of my past video feeds, you’ll likely be getting the show as it comes out. If not, just check back here at the site, I’m sure the details will be prominently plastered everywhere.
Also, New Blogs: Social Networking and ROBOTS!
I’ve been regularly updating a blog that only a few people read, “Rizzn’s Robots” (feeds.feedburner.com/rizzn/robots). It’s something I’ve been interested in doing for a long time, and for some reason never got around to getting done. I’ve found that the updates are easy to do and flow out of me quick, so I think the site will be sustainable from a passion perspective.
If you like robots at all (and if you don’t, what the hell is wrong with you?), I’d strongly suggest you subscribe to it, or at least scroll through what’s there.
I’ve also launched a new blog called “Rizzn’s Socnets” (feeds.feedburner.com/rizzn/socnets). It’s essentially the sort of social media news I’ve been posting the last fifteen months, but here and not there. There aren’t a lot of bloggers that still religiously cover the podcasting and video beats like I do, so I wanted to keep a place where the neglected stories can get some coverage here.
As of last night, I’ve also signed some deals to have at least two new writers come and work for Rizzn.com, and there’s word of me getting an intern as well, so hopefully I’ll be able to foster some community here at the site as well as making it a bit of a destination for the news in the style I like to convey.
So until someone else hires me into some sort of exclusive relationship to talk about those topics, I’ll be updating that feed here with whatever’s rumbling around in my head on the topic.
So Are You Signed With Another Outfit Yet?
No, not yet. I’m still fielding offers at the moment, and there are a number of enticing opportunities, but nothing has progressed far enough for me to say exactly where I’m going to land yet.
The Sappy Stuff
I’ve saved the sappy stuff for the end, because most of you are likely interested in the news of what I’m doing next and why I’m leaving and all that other mess. Not to mention that for those of you interested in the personal angle, you hafta read through all my other self-promotion to get to this part.
All my former co-workers had an impact on my life, but I wanted to make special mention of the folks I had the closest contact with, the editorial team.
Pete Cashmore has been one of the most interesting folks to work for in my long history of having interesting bosses. He and I always had whirlwind conversations, and I’ve admired his insight and unique perspective on social media. Of all the bosses I’ve had, he’s been one of my favorites.
Adam Ostrow was a great Editor in Chief, and was cool to work w
ith this past year. He’s got a laid back style that made conflict resolution a breeze (because there’s always some sort of conflict to resolve). That didn’t prevent him from relentlessly executing, and his expectations of his staff caused me to strive to constantly improve. I like to think I succeeded at that.
Stan Schroeder was an awesome editor. He always has a penchant for going straight to the heart of the matter and saying in five words what I take five paragraphs to say. His insight and feedback was something I always valued.
Sean P. Aune was probably the guy on staff with whom I had the most contact, and someone I count as a friend first before I count him as a co-worker. He and I had a blast doing the video version of our podcast, but what was the most fun was commiserating over IM on whatever was the latest thing to vex we cranky bastards.
All the other writers and content producers who’ve worked directly for me over the last year also have been great additions to my life, most of which I also now count as friends and reliable business contacts. In no particular order (I hope I’m not forgetting anyone): Steven Hodson, Alana Taylor, Doriano “Paisano” Carta, Kristen Nicole, Art Lindsey III, and Saha.
As for all the PR people I’ve worked with over the last year – definitely keep me in your rolodex. I’ve actually struck up rewarding friendships with a number of you, and I’ve enjoyed being kept constantly in the know by just opening my inbox.
The Religious Nature of the Singularity
Do you believe in the Singularity?
Do you know what it is?
Finding it’s roots in the research and philosophies of Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge, it’s the idea that all technology is on a path to convergence, and the results of this entail machine sentience, infinite human life extension, and a theoretical future in which the difference between machine intelligence and human intelligence might be indistinguishable from one another.
It’s a future I happen to believe in, and something that I think will take place in our lifetime.
That’s why I keep an eye out for articles like the one I found today over at Gadget Lab today. The subject of the piece was a speech given by economist James Miller at the Singularity Summit a few weeks ago (an event I really wish I was able to attend – Mashable didn’t wanna foot the bill on that indulgence, though).
James Miller’s presentation had to do with not just the effect of the Singularity on the general economy (as something like that is almost impossible to predict with a fair degree of accuracy, it’s so revolutionary in its nature), but the effect of the expectations of the Singularity.
“Long before there is a singularity, people will come to expect it,” Miller told attendees at the Singularity Summit in San Jose. “And it is very likely that could happen within 20 years.”The belief that a vastly different future is near could change how people make choices in life, education, investment and retirement, says Miller. “People will become very fearful of death, save less and invest differently,” he says.
Most significant among their choices would be the emphasis on extending life, says Smith. “If you think there will be a machine-driven future then your top priority is to survive long enough to make it to the singularity,” he says.
That means people force Governments to increase its defense spending in a bid to ensure the greatest chance of survival.
“Believers will also want to spend more money to increase their chances of making it to the singularity with things such as safer cars and machines that make jobs such as construction safer,” he says.
This, in and of itself is logical extraction, and while it’s worthy of a good ponder, what I found more interesting was some of the reaction in the comments and from the attendees. From one attendee:
Miller’s talk was among the most controversial at the conference. His financial advice especially had some of the attendees riled. “The framing of this discussion into believers and non-believers is ridiculous,” says Eric Acher, an associate with the Sao Paulo, Brazil-based Monashees capital who claims he walked out of the talk towards the end. “The discussion needs to be about the impact of technological progress on society.”
And this, from one of the commentors:
Every year, the singularity is looking more like religion and less like science. It has its pope, its doctrine, its annual pilgrimage, its prophets and its prophecies. The coming super intelligent machine is its Messiah.Decidely, you can take the boys and the girls out of religion but you can’t take the religion out of them. hahaha…
Why it struck me personally is that when I was first studying singularity, I was reading The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil while dating a gal who was a member of the Jehovah’s Witness.
You’ll Hafta Stick With Me On This, I Promise I’ll Bring It Back Around From Religion
If you’re not a member of the faith and haven’t studied their beliefs very closely, you might not be sure exactly why they’re not considered part of the main of Protestant beliefs. As I’m a fairly open-minded fellow, I took the time to meet with some folks from her congregation, attended a few ‘meetings’, and read a number of their religious texts to get a handle on what it is that they believe.
If you’re not a member of the faith and haven’t studied their beliefs very closely, you might not be sure exactly why they’re not considered part of the main of Protestant beliefs. As I’m a fairly open-minded fellow, I took the time to meet with some folks from her congregation, attended a few ‘meetings’, and read a number of their religious texts to get a handle on what it is that they believe.
The chief differences in the JW faith the main of Christianity is that they’re a works-based religion, and they don’t believe in the Godhood of Christ (and thus discount the concept of the Trinity).
They’re also a belief system that very heavily roots itself in end time theology. They have very specific beliefs on how they interpret the book of Revelations, and the timeline of the end-times is very ingrained in every JW member.
For instance, they don’t believe that those who are saved will ascend to heaven during the rapture, only a select 144,000 saints pre-selected for their exemplary duty, devotion and works. The rest of the saved will live on a Utopian Earth presided over by Jesus Christ. There will be no need to toil at the Earth for sustenance.
The way it was described to me several times was that the only goal for those that wished to live on beyond the 1000 years Christ and the anointed reigned on Earth would be to live in obedience to him, but that the world would not be defined by the survivalist roots we exist under today.
Also, very interestingly, they believe that these days are upon us imminently, and that the spiritual battle that precedes this will not be visible to humanity, only the effects of the Armageddon. In fact, this process began, as they say, in 1914 when Satan was cast from heaven. World War I was the physical symptom of this spiritual occurrence.
Here’s Where it Got Interesting
I generally regarded these beliefs as interesting as a good science fiction novel. I was brought up Christian, but I’m one of the rare few in my particular buckle of the geographic Bible Belt who took the time to learn the why’s of what I believe. As such, I came to the conclusion that there is a whole lot we’re simply not meant to know, and vast extrapolations in vivid date and detail on what is exactly meant in Revelations is beyond the capability of mortal men.
I generally regarded these beliefs as interesting as a good science fiction novel. I was brought up Christian, but I’m one of the rare few in my particular buckle of the geographic Bible Belt who took the time to learn the why’s of what I believe. As such, I came to the conclusion that there is a whole lot we’re simply not meant to know, and vast extrapolations in vivid date and detail on what is exactly meant in Revelations is beyond the capability of mortal men.
Essentially, Matthew 25:12-13: “But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”
What I did find inte
resting were the striking similarities between the JW’s vision of Utopian Earth and the Kurzweilian view of the Singularity.
In The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil talks about the emerging view of the human body as a machine rather than a chemical soup. This leads to the treatment of the body with more advanced machine like methods, such as Nanotechnology. Meanwhile, the same type of technology is the future of machine building blocks, particularly of Moore’s Law continues in perpetuity.
The net effect is that once vast portions (if not all) of the human body are run by nanobots, the idea that we’ll need to be constantly fueled by digestion of bio matter through our gastro-intestinal systems becomes a thing of the past. In this Utopian future, virtually all matter could be broken down at the molecular level and re-assembled into the matter needed to deliver nutrients or repairs to the body and mind.
Thus, the need to exist in a world defined by survivalist codes ceases to exist. Fighting over physical territory or raw materials becomes pointless, since virtually all physical matter could be used for the purposes of sustenance.
Furthermore, the process of progressing towards this Singular existence has begun already. The very first steps to understanding and utilizing nanotechnology have long since begun. The progress towards this future takes place hidden in plain sight – we don’t notice the technological leaps because we don’t see the forest for the trees (could you have predicted the iPhone or The Cloud twenty or thirty years ago? how about five years ago?).
Do I Have a Point?
I’m certainly not suggesting that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are onto something. While their end-times beliefs may have some very striking similarities to Singularity theory, their culture and real world effects on their members are very negative, in my experience.
I’m certainly not suggesting that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are onto something. While their end-times beliefs may have some very striking similarities to Singularity theory, their culture and real world effects on their members are very negative, in my experience.
Not to venture too far off into judgementalism, but my personal experiences in their “meetings” left me feeling very cold, almost as if they were attempting to brainwash me out of any sense of individualism. It certainly isn’t an experience I’d recommend.
I think the best way to describe this odd correlative story is to relay a different story I picked up from SlashDot earlier today regarding the age of the Monty Python skit:
laejoh writes “Monty Python’s ‘Dead Parrot sketch’ — which featured John Cleese — is some 1,600 years old. A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: ‘When he was with me, he never did any such thing!’ The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969.”
Once in a while, two trains of thought will arrive at the same station from different origination points. I think this is one of those times. It just so happens that these two origination points couldn’t be further from one another, in my opinion.
Get Off My (Virtual) Lawn!
Just another cynical observation today, but it seems that with the election out of the way, and all of us settling into a routine of living in the world of our current “Great Depression,” it’s time to trot out the tired old tropes of the social media punditry world.
They’re only trickling in now, but I’m starting to see the resurgence of the blog post on the “A-List” and “B-List” blogs that follows the format…
- Pick some well established and known aspect of social media or Web 2.0 that’s a primary focus or recurring topic for the blog they’re writing on..
- .. talk about how poorly it’s monetized or harp on every single failure that company has had over the year(s)…
- .. and then somehow tie it into cynical overtones of how there’s a culture of stupid with a trite quote mangle like “Dude, where’s my business model?” or “Honey, I Shrunk the Payroll!”
I’m not naming names, but I’ll be honest, there are very few people in my business that have earned the right to write articles like that. Most of the ones who tend to write these articles either live and participate in the Silicon Valley culture…
You know what? Skip that thought. The irony is that these people don’t realize that they absolutely require high levels of technology euphoria to continue in perpetuity if they want to keep collecting paychecks. The thing that they lazily work to undermine every day is what’s responsible for their lifestyle.
That never seems to prevent them from jumping on the bandwagon every single time Steve Rubel puts up a blog post with the Kool-Aid guy in it, though.
As a total aside to the point of this blog post – did anyone ever stop to ask what the hell Steve was trying to alude to when he made that post? The title was “The Web 2.0 World is Skunk Drunk on Its Own Kool-Aid.” What does that mean? Is it an allusion to cults? Like Jim Jones, drinking the Kool-Aid? Is it saying that the Web 2.0 world is hick-ish or redneck-y (skunk drunk is a southern or rural colloquialism).
Does Steve even know the answers to these questions? Everyone just started quoting it (including me) as if it made any sort of sense.
To try to bring it back to my original point, I think that form of “critical opinion piece” is the laziest form of editorial (and I know a little bit about lazy – and editorials). It’s essentially setting up a straw man, something easy to knock down, but for the purpose of no greater cause.
In debate, a straw man fallacy is typically used to prop up some sort of overarching point or position, but too often I see it used just as a way to sound like they’re adding analysis to a story.
“Oh look, YouTube is putting full length movies up but guess who forgot to set up a business model!” And then comes the “Oh, when will Google start making money?”
Anyone who’s ever, I don’t know, looked at a Google quarterly income report or even a traffic report on YouTube.com knows that the company is probably making more than any two or three other video purveyors on the net combined. Is it a perfect business model? No. Are they best utilizing their assets? Probably not.
But actual analysis is too hard for these people, so they just toss up a couple lines about how Web 2.0 is known for not having business models and call it a day.
This isn’t me calling out insightful cynics like Steven Hodson, Sean Aune, Loren Feldman or even (on occasion) Drama 2.0. All of these folks either work in the actual trenches of this business or have the age and thus the perspective to make these sorts of calls. I’m talking about the pundits for which this bubble/bust cycle is their first rodeo, and the ones that don’t seem to have any particular area of expertise yet still talk about all aspects of Web 2.0 as if they know everything.
It’s annoying as hell. Heck, I know I’m wrong on occasion, and I know I annoy a lot of folks. My goal is generally to stick to criticizing things where I know what I’m talking about though – and I wish it were a rule more people stuck with.
I’ll put it another way, and then I’ll stop banging this drum: I remember a time when the blogosphere’s most highly read blogs and indie news sites were places where you could find accurate and informed information – stuff that put to shame the Old Media stuff. I mean, those of us doing this five or ten years ago would look at what would pass for tech news at the New York Times, CNN or on MSNBC and generally laugh our asses off.
These days, I’m even seeing local Dallas network TV and newspapers doing tech news that rivals in quality what shows up in parts of the supposedly “respected tech blogosphere.”
That’s something to think about, if you do this for a living.
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James Smith and the IITW
If you’ve read this site for more than a year and a half (and let’s be honest, there’s probably only about six of you), then you know James Smith.
For those of you who don’t know James, I consider him a brother from another mother. When I was a youngster, I used to ride my bike over to his house to hang out and chat about BBS’s and Internet and other such malarky. I’m lucky to have called him my friend for over a decade and a half.
Usually, we work on projects together, but since my work at Mashable has consumed all waking hours of my life for the last year, we haven’t had a chance to work on much together in a while, and as such, I was only vaguely familiar with his latest thing up until the other day.
His project, IITW, is finally seeing the light of day. InfoWorld did a piece on it Tuesday. It’s brilliant. It’s a union for tech workers without all that “damn the man” sentiment going on.
I Am Not an Earthling
Political neophytes Dave Winer and Robert Scoble have been once again inflicting their beliefs upon the public. This is not particularly new stuff from them. Ever since the primary campaigns, Dave and Robert have been showing the world why they should stick to pontificating on technology rather than politics.
Dave Winer’s post was entitled “I Am Not a Liberal,” and revolved around the mistaken concept that ‘Obama is a conservative, and so is Dave.’ Robert Scoble, never one to pass up an opportunity to alienate anyone with an ounce of conservatism, takes the “concept a step further” and proudly declares that he is “Not an American.”
Judging by the responses in their comment section, both Dave and Robert have already alienated everyone from his audience who could have a different opinion than him.
If you read both of the blog posts and don’t understand what’s wrong with what they said, then this post isn’t for you. Go read a couple of books on political ideology, maybe a history book or two, and come back and perhaps we can talk.
For the rest of you that barely made it through Dave’s post and then halfway through Robert’s post and were either laughing or crying from stream of pseudo-facts and straight up ignorant beliefs and statements, you know what I mean.
Need more insight as to what I mean? Robert’s post is sentence fragment after sentence fragment, each followed by the refrain “I am not an American.” Most of what he says are straw men arguements. No one has alleged that marrying a Muslim woman doesn’t make you American.
I mean seriously: Robert doesn’t understand the difference between Fascism and Socialism, despite the fact that he drops his holocaust credentials every chance he gets (for those of you playing the game at home, President Bush’s nationalized banking is a positive move for Fascism, Senator Obama’s plan for socialised medicine and socialized insurance is a positive move for Socialism).
On the spectrum of human political ideals, socialism is a left ideology. That isn’t some sort of uninformed, uneducated opinion… that’s a simple fact. I didn’t make it up, and you can find a number of scholars and informed opinions that agree with me.
So when Dave Winer tries to tell me that because I consider his plans for socialized medicine “liberal,” I must be ignorant, I have to wonder what planet he’s hailing from. I furthermore resent the implication that I need to change my opinion of Obama, get on board for the big win and vote for him, or I’m somehow not playing on the side of “Team America.”
Rob Diana wrote an excellent article for Mashable a couple weeks ago, and it was entitled: “Are Politics Damaging Your Brand?” I didn’t chime in on it because I very obviously participate in political discussions, but I can’t deny the effect that political opinions have on my regard of social media pundits.
I think that, two weeks of pondering, I’ve finally arrived at an opinion, and if you think about it, I’m sure you’ll agree:
Political opinions don’t necessarily damage your brand. Everything you say on a big enough stage will attract passionate detractors. When you very obviously will have problems passing Economic 101 and Intro to American Political Opinion, then you proceed to opine to thousands of Americans on politics and the economy, you very rightly deserve to have your brand damaged.
Robert Scoble and Dave Winer have been venturing forth into political punditry for a while now (Dave much longer than Robert). I almost never agree with either one of them, but as they’ve spent more time illustrating the nature and sources of their beliefs, it’s become glaringly obvious that they only have a very knee-jerk and superficial understanding of the principles they espouse. Thus, I don’t respect their opinions, and think a lot less of the rest of their opinion.
If they can’t be bothered to understand what they’re talking about when it comes to politics and the economy (and feel no remorse for propagating flawed opinions to the masses), why should I respect their opinions on the rest of their established domain of expertise?
What’s the lesson here?
If you can’t speak intelligently about something, and everything you write on your blog is read by thousands of people, it may be best to keep your opinions to yourself.
It isn’t because your opinions aren’t valid. Heck, even the numbnuts who were at that Sarah Palin rally a couple weeks ago who called for the death of Senator Obama had valid opinions (and this is America, where every opinion, no matter how stupid or offensive it may be, is valid).
You will, however, undermine your credibility if you speak on topics as if you were an expert when you very clearly aren’t.
Another Reason You Shouldn't Listen to Recession Monkeys
This will be kept short, and I promise I’ll use this blog for something other than ranting about the economy again soon….
.. but I caught an editorial by Bernard Lunn, a fellow I’ve never really taken seriously for a number of reasons.
Back in April, Bernard started writing for ReadWriteWeb, and erroneously asserted that we were in a recession. He’s been asserting ever since (and for sometime before, I’m guessing, just not at RWW) that we’re headed for gravely dire times.
As I’ve said, I’ll believe it when I see it. I haven’t had anyone conclusively demonstrate to me the connection between Wall Street and Main Street, and I’ve had a number of people refute it.
Back to the thing that set me off today, Bernard Lunn. Today he asked, in all earnest, where the alarm bells were:
Seeing the Blogosphere afire with tales of crisis in start-up land, with emails going from the wise investors to their portfolio companies, makes me think: no duh! Driving with your eye only on the rear view mirror is not smart. I hate to say “I told you so” but some times I cannot help myself. We have been banging this drum for a year. Not that it took a genius to see that a downturn was coming, it was bleeding obvious! We followed up with perspective here and here. When the sky started to fall a few weeks ago we started to look on the positive side.
Wanna know why we didn’t hear the alarm bells? Because the false alarms have been going off for ages now. There was only one person that predicted the situation we’re in that I’ve heard mention it in the last three years, and he’s not a blogger.
Everyone else has been pointing to our unemployment rate, which is still phenomenal, our GDP, which is still growing, and the price of oil and gas, which is now falling.
They’ve been, as Bernard so succinctly put it, banging this drum for years saying the bubble is going to burst any second now, and are wondering why we didn’t believe them.
Has anyone heard the fable of the boy who cried wolf? Seriously, I can’t be the only one to know that tale. Bernard isn’t the only one, either. People have been saying we’re in a bubble and it’s going to collapse on us since 2005, less than a year after the term came into existence.
Here’s the bottom line, people: You can’t say that the end is near for the entire duration of the boom and when it ends three years later claim victory. It doesn’t work like that.
Update: Although I used Bernard as a foil for this piece, he gives four pieces of advice at the end of his post, all of which I agree with. You should read it for that.
The Religious Nature of the Singularity
Do you believe in the Singularity? Do you know what it is? Finding it’s roots in...
Get Off My (Virtual) Lawn!
Just another cynical observation today, but it seems that with the election out of the...
James Smith and the IITW
If you’ve read this site for more than a year and a half (and let’s be...
I Am Not an Earthling
Political neophytes Dave Winer and Robert Scoble have been once again inflicting their...
Another Reason You Shouldn't Listen to Recession Monkeys
This will be kept short, and I promise I’ll use this blog for something other than...
