Successful Blog

The Mic is On: We’re Talking about Animals We Love!

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

We Call Them Pets

Man’s best friend, woman’s roommate — the animals we love are lifelong friends in real ways. Tonight we’re talking about cats, dogs and other pets.

  • what makes a pet?
  • where do we find one?
  • what’s your best pet story?
  • bring your pet real or imaginary pet.

    • ahem . . .

Kitten

And, whatever else comes up, including THE EVER POPULAR, Basil the code-writing donkey . . . and flamenco dancing (because we always get off topic, anyway.)

Oh, and bring example links to share —

–ME “Liz” Strauss
image: sxc.hu
Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: Cats, Dogs, and Animals We Love

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Join Us Tonight

We Call Them Pets

Man’s best friend, woman’s roommate — the animals we love are lifelong friends in real ways. Tonight we’re talking about cats, dogs and other pets.

    what makes a pet?
    where do we find one?
    what’s your best pet story?
    bring your pet real or imaginary pet.
    ahem . . .

Oh, and bring example links to share —

The rules are simple — be nice.

Do be nice. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

What Will We Be When the Social Media Market Grows Up?

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Attention Is Not a New Idea

Creativity at Work

Thanks to everyone who participated in yesterday’s discussion of Creativity with a Capital C as described by the criteria set out by Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who also wrote Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. As I enjoy rereading this favorite in this new time, I hope you’ll stay with me.

Unlike instinct, learning must be acquired by every new person again and again. As a culture gains more information, individuals must pay more attention or focus in on narrower domains of study. As a culture gets more complex subdomains become too huge for one person to assimilate.The more mature the culture, the more it favors specialized knowledge.

Csikszentmihalyi points out that

Nobody knows who last Renaissance man really was, but sometime after Leonardo da Vinci it became impossible to learn enough about all of the arts and sciences to be an expert in more than a small fraction of them. Domains have split into subdomains, and a mathematician who has mastered algebra may not know much about number theory, combinatorix, topology — and vice versa. . . . now all of these special skills tend to be acquired by different people.

Therefore it follows that as culture evolves, specialized knowledge will be favored over generalized knowledge.

Consider three people — a community builder, an event planner, and a social media manager. The first two need to focus their attention on studying one thing. Their jobs are defined and somewhat narrow. The social media manager must study both of those areas plus many others.

We need to master a domain before we can innovate or create new ideas. As domains add more information, experts are forced deeper into narrower bits.

Mature markets form niches — it’s the natural evolution. Limited attention limits our options. To know anything well we must focus on less.

At the moment, the social media market is young and not well understood. Relatively little information is available. As more information is added to the common pool, it becomes less possible for one person to be fluent in all of it.

Do you see social media domain splitting? Are social networking sites becoming more specialized? What we will be when the social media market grows up?

I wonder.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Can Social Media Produce World-Changing Creativity?

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Creativity with a Capital C

Creativity at Work

Every two or three years, I return to the book, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Creativity is based on a rigorous study of 91 internationally recognized creative people as part of his “effort to make more understandable the mysterious process by which men and women come up with new ideas and new things.” He called it Creativity with a capital C, because their contributions had world changing impact.

The study included writers, astronomers, Nobel Prize winners, actors, Historians, paleontologists, scultors, painters, architects, scientists, biologists, musicians, photographers, economists, philosophers, inventors, composers, physicians, chemists, psychologists, politicians.

According to Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, three things must come together for culture changing Creativity to occur.

  1. a domain that contains symbolic rules
  2. people who bring novelty into that domain
  3. a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation

All three are necessary for a creative idea, product, or discovery to take place.

Can the Social Media Produce World-Changing Creativity?

Every morning, we wake up to the challenge of being creative in our lives. As Lateral Action points out this morning, Creativity is Economic Priority Number One. Some cynically don’t see value in thinking beyond the fundamentals, but that doesn’t change the challenge continues to grow. The present shift moving programmable and scripted jobs offshore requires a high concept, creative and human response.

I see us with the toys of social media communication. Some days, I wonder how many of us are caught up in the playing. What’s the value Plurking on Plurk about Plurking? How much of that is really necessary to understanding the humans think? What problems does it help us solve?

Conversation without a clear purpose is still conversation that doesn’t go anywhere. Collecting friends isn’t a noble goal in itself.

How are we to put these virtual applications toward getting the world to work?

  1. Is social media a domain that contains symbolic rules?
  2. Are there people who bring to it novel ideas?
  3. Has it established a field of experts who can recognize and validate an innovation?

Can social media produce world-changing Creativity with a Capital C?

I wonder.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Gray Monday Mornings and Other People’s Problems

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Another Day, Another Fifty Cents

587337_mutant_monkey

In college my roommate and I had a routine for leaving our apartment for class. It was a silly script that we said as we locked up. It started with our version of the saying, “Another day, another dollar.”

The script was,

“Another day, Another fifty cents, maybe a dime after taxes. We’ll miss you, Mom! We’re leaving home for college.” Then we’d walk off together.

It was a reminder that life is all in how you look at it.

That script has stayed with me through inflation and returns to me whenever a plane is delayed or a unexpected problem creeps into my perfected ordered plans. I think of it, too, on gray Monday mornings when I want to write something inspiring.

These days I think, “Goodbye! I’ll miss you. I’m off to solve important problems.”

The reason the script works for me is the sense of detachment and irony that comes with word play in the sentences. I’m repositioned to think of a problem as just a problem and not a personal hardship.

When a problem is no longer my personal problem is much more interesting.

Do you find it more fun to solve other people’s problems?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Now YUDU It! to Win a YUDU PLUS Account or maybe a MacBook Air!

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ARE YOU READY TO KICK IT UP A NOTCH?

The slideshow of the Brand New Blog Feeling went up earlier this afternoon. It was a thrill making it, because as I worked with captions and photos it seemed as if I got know the people who sent them in.

What was also a thrill was explaining to the folks I work with at YUDU Digital Publishing how they might be a collaborative active part of what we’re doing on our blogs. They “get” it. That’s very cool.

And as a result, today I’m announcing how the contest that just ended has spurred another one.

YUDU It! to Win a YUDU PLUS ProAccount or a MacBook Air!

If you join in an make a simple slide show of 5-10 slides, your show will be judged by a team from YUDU.com and the top entry will receive a YUDU PLUS account. That’s a big deal, believe me. A YUDU Plus Account unlocks some even cooler features, that are coming to market just this week. YUDU PLUS includes these treats and more. You can

  • Do ecommerce. Put your documents, music and special photos up for Sale and name your Price.
  • Have automatic document protection that helps Prevent Copying and sharing with people who haven’t paid.
  • Make professional documents with mutlimedia embeds using YUDU Plus editing suite. Upload a New Cover; rearrange, Add or Delete pages, select different Language toolbars, change Backgrounds, add Page Links and link Photos and text to external websites.
  • Embed your library in your Website or blog, and when get collect 10% of the signup fee.

The YUDU contest for the MacBook Air requires signing up friends. BUT as part of this YUDU It! contest if you tag your entry Blogger 908, you’ll be automatically entered to for a chance to win without having to pull out that address book.

Here’s what you need to know . . .

Yudu Nav bar

I did it. I made two slideshows just this week. It’s your turn — will YUDU it now for a chance at:
YUDU PLUS account valued at US$180
and
A MacBook Air? Or maybe just to see how well you do with YUDU.

You know what I mean.

BTW, YUDU is looking for beta testers for this new launch. If you’re interested, please email me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
See the Work with Liz!! for how to start some business rolling for yourself.