All in The Blogosphere

Milford, Connecticut, Fire Department Uses ArcGIS to Optimize Incident Response

Charlie O'Donnell
The Blogosphere

I just got this in my findmypath@gmail.com mailbox...

Dear Charlie,

             We read the profile of you in Sunday’s “Newsday” and thought your knowledge, experience, and success with blogging as a networking and career building tool would make a great basis for a Learning Annex course.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

If you don't know what the Learning Annex is, you obviously don't walk around the city much, because their little booklets with classes for people to take are everywhere.  Ok, so I'm definately going to do that, AND it could also help me with the book thing, because they have "How to Get Published" talks all the time, so I'm sure they know literary agents.

I may have mentioned this before, but the ultimate irony of all this is that its turning out that what is "going to be big" is the blog itself.


Photo Essay: Australian Journeys

Charlie O'Donnell
Random Stuff, The Blogosphere

Link: The Mobile Andrew: November 2004.

Did you notice what's hilarious about this pic?

Andrew Anker has been moblogging for some time now, which basically means he has a camera phone that he takes pictures with, and e-mails them straight to his blog with a little note.  He works for Six Apart, which is the company behind Typepad, which powers my blog as well as my Find My Path career site. He snapped off the photo above at Six Apart's recent board meeting.  The picture is of the co-founder of the company, Mena Trott, but what really struck me was the two gentlemen in the backround.  One of them is someone I had the fortune to meet earlier this year, David Hornick, who is a VC from August Capital who funded the company recently.  The other guy... well... the other guy is HUGE... or at least appears that way in the picture.  So David wouldn't make the Sand Hill Road basketball team (which, by the way, would likely be dominated from the guys at ComVentures and John Hummer, who used to play in the NBA/ABA), but still...  this is just hilarious.   

I brought the pic to David's attention and he responded:

"Just clicked on your link.  That's hilarious.  The guy I was talking to was
a mere 6 foot 8.  Of course that seems pretty darn tall when you're 5 foot
4."   

At least he takes it in stride, no matter how short those strides may be.   Good luck guys!  I've enjoyed keeping up with this company.

On RSS and...pizza

Charlie O'Donnell
The Blogosphere

I was trying to explain to my dad on Saturday what RSS was and I came up with this analogy:

Web content is like pizza and there are a couple of ways to get your pizza.  HTML is like having it "to stay."  Web pages written in HTML are all about getting you to come in, stop in one place and spend some time on it.  RSS is like getting your content "to go"--no tray, dish, glasses... just your food in a box, formatted to be sent exactly where you want it, when you want it.  E-mail content from a website is like having pizza sent to you as well, in that same box, just not always when you want it, which is hardly convenient at all.

Thoughts en route that defy traditional categorizations

Charlie O'Donnell
Random Stuff, The Blogosphere, Venture Capital & Technology

I know I'm going to have to reset my catagories.  I'm realizing that most of my blogs fit into like eight catagories and then I've also got both a "Friends and Outings" and "Outings and Friends" catagory.  I don't know how that happened.  So I'm at the airport now, shelling out another six bucks for 60 minutes of TMobile wireless.  Actually, I don't mind it, because I use it sparingly, since DTUT covers me pretty well in terms of wireless usage. 

I was reading apophenia and she commented on the nature of the blogger/audience interaction...

"For me, the plausible deniability invoked in blogging is strong. I can convince myself that i write for me and me alone ::wink:: and convince myself to be shocked when i receive feedback. I can check my stats, but those are just numbers - nameless, faceless people. Yet, here i am, speaking to nameless, faceless people, only i'm required by this situation to convince myself that you do really exist, even if i cannot see you. In this situation, i have the expectation that i am a face to you and you're just an assumption to me. It really brings life to the idea that i'm just a talking head."

She's actually studying the socialogy behind blogs and social networking over the web, among other things and she writes some really thoughtful stuff.  Her archives go back to 1997, making her the earliest blogger I know.

This trip was fantastic for me.  I feel reenergized.  Beware my next big project.  I hadn't actually taken a real non-family vacation since.... well, I can't actually remember.  Perhaps it dates all the way back to when Deirg and I went to Jill's wedding.  This vacation thing could be a good thing, even if I am enjoying my life.  Sometimes, its good to get a restart.

So, I'm looking at my fellow passengers waiting to get on.  These are all the cheap people, because there was a $200 difference between the red eye and the afternoon flight.  I'm debating what will make me sleep easier....  light food or a big turkey sandwich.  Either way, even if I don't get good sleep, I'm heading straight to the gym when I get into the city.  That will make me feel better.  I'm looking forward to that post-gym shower.  Ok, boarding soon.   I gotta figure out what zone I am.

Oh, PS...   Good for the Scott Peterson jury.  We all knew he was guilty.  Of course, I still can't figure out how, where, when, or why... but I suppose that doesn't matter.  You know some goofball will marry him while he's in prison, too.

Toyota, Honda Report Sales Jump in July

Charlie O'Donnell
The Blogosphere

Link: apophenia: impression management: blogs as terrible representations. 

Last week, we got to meet some of my readers, which was very cool.  Now, I'm thinking about, after reading danah's article, what the impression is that I give off.  I don't think I've ever really met anyone through my blog after building up any kind of substantial online relationship anyway.  I wonder what kind of impression I give off here and how that compares to my offline persona.  I think part of the issue is that a lot of people only blog on one topic.  Fred and I are probably very much like we are in person as we are on our blogs.  In fact, Fred is pretty much his walking blog.  As for danah, I'm sure she's probably much more chill in person as she is on her blog, because she tends to get into some heady academic thinking on there.  In fact, as I get into some of the more well known bloggers I met through their blogs first and then in person, like Mena, Jarvis, and Steve Rubel, I think they're pretty much what I expected.  If you keep up with a blog, I think a lot of someone's personality comes out.  Its difficult to write everyday and hide major aspects of your persona... at least for me it is anyway.  So, I think I'm probably much like my blog.

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