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There will be no change. Yet. (OWS)

January 10, 2012 by Jim Parker in humanity,revolution

So I saw this article about how the STL tea party is refocusing their efforts. Less being loud while focusing on being more substantive:

StLBeacon.org – Tea Party Changes Focus

This is kind of thing that the Occupy movement needs to do. What long-term, sustainable leverage are the Occupy folks getting other than communicating their rage. This isn’t Egypt. This is a first world country. Just showing up to a rally is not going inspire legions of people to follow their cause. The Occupy movement needs a message that people can believe in.

People are selfish. They are not going to get behind the Occupy movement without a strong, emotional cause that has a better than average chance of success of making their lives truly better.

Our constitutional rights are being eroded, we have high unemployment, our government is corrupt, poverty is growing, the gap between rich and poor is growing, our schools prepare our kids for nothing, our culture is produced for the lowest common denominator, we’re unhealthy, and yet we don’t care.

We have cheap alcohol, cheap drugs, the media thinks for us, and food is cheap. These are the things that keep the underprivileged dumb and apathetic. And throw into the mix that most people have no true model of living a virtuous life – there will be no revolution any time soon. Until people can believe that they actually do hold the power within themselves to have more in their lives, there will be no change.

So what I say to the occupy folks – stop complaining and telling us how bad things are. I don’t believe you. Instead, tell me how things can be better. Organize around constructivism not destructivism. Anybody can criticize what is wrong. Only leaders can lead us through the righteous path.

Thoughts?

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Steve Jobs. My Inspiration.

November 18, 2011 by Jim Parker in Uncategorized

Walter Isaacson’s first words in his new book about Steve Jobs are this:

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do.” 

– Apple’s Think Different Commercial.

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Flood Waters in the Midwest

March 21, 2008 by Jim Parker in friends,humanity

This is a bit off topic for this blog, but significant nevertheless for me. I’m from St. Louis Missouri, where area rivers are overflowing their banks. I have extensive pictures posted at my flickr account which can be found here: Jim Parker ‘s Flickr

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Who Reinvents the Firm?

March 17, 2008 by Jim Parker in corporate,dna,leadership

One of my favorites, Umair Haque, (who is now writing at hbs too) wrote the following last week in a blog entry:

“That feeling – like a dull toothache – is a massively powerful heuristic that something is deeply wrong; wrong with McJobs; wrong with $100m bonuses for value destruction; wrong with the evisceration of variety, choice, and happiness; wrong with the long slow death of culture and community; wrong with the sinking intuition that like you’ve signed away your life when you walk into that cube, all for a few bucks and free lattes.

So who reinvents the firm? We do.”

This is something I talk about regularly with select friends and co-workers. A great many of us wish things were better. We see the problems, we see the waste, we see the selfishness, we see the value being sucked away. And we see our customers suffer.

Well, I have started to reinvent our organization. I’ll write about it here once I gain traction.

And if I don’t reinvent the organization or the firm, then I need to go. My path is clear: One way or the other I will reinvent!

UPDATE:  (11/22/2011):  I ended up leaving the company  I speak of here.

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Twitter Events via Custom Twitter Nodes

February 26, 2008 by Jim Parker in Internet Business,media,twitter

Fred Wilson writes about a great idea for Twitter in Event Firehoses in Twitter.

I think that is a great idea. This is something I have been thinking about for quite a while. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to subscribe to an event in such a way.

For the sake of discussion, I like to throw a couple of problems and a possible alternative solution:

First, in order for a person’s tweet to show up in the event, they would have to use one of the tracking keywords. That means correct spelling is required and existence of that keyword is a obviously critical. “John Stewart” and “Jon Stewert” wouldn’t be picked up. My idea of what keyword is associated to the Oscars event might be different than yours. Or, I might be a horrible speller.

But also, that means tweets couldn’t become part of the context of the event unless a keyword was present. “Wow he just slipped on stage” (as Colin Farrell and John Travolta did) wouldn’t show in the feed as there are no keywords that identify the context – yet obviously, this tweet should appear in the “Oscar Event Feed”.

So what is an alternative?

What if Twitter had the concept of events built in? For example, the organizers of the Oscars could register “Oscars” event at a Twitter event config site. Then, from my phone, IM, Twitter client, or via the web, I could get a list of current/upcoming events. If I had done that Sunday night, I would have seen “Oscars” as a list of events of the night. Then, I could type eventon Oscars on my phone. From this point on, all tweets I send would go to the “Oscars” event group. Also, I would receive all tweets from other people who were attending (have joined) the “Oscars” event via Twitter.

So rather than depending on keywords, I simply join an event. I get all tweets within the event context. When the event is over (i.e. the twitter event expires) then I stop getting tweets in that context.

Custom Twitter Nodes is the Answer-

In my opinion, it is this sort of functionality that will (should) take Twitter to the next level. What if Twitter were to add the concept of Custom Twitter Nodes where people could setup and configure Nodes to meet the needs of their event, or group, or whatever? The possibilities are endless were Twitter to start offering “Custom Twitter Nodes”. Events would be one type of node with a set of rules. Perhaps there would be a Private Twitter Node type that people could setup and join without content being publicly available. How about an Custom Twitter node at the club? Or a conference? What about a Custom Twitter Node type for the grocery store? Hmmmm. Somebody might pay for that.

Yes, much of this functionality can be hacked by third parties. And many of these third parties are doing great and cool stuff. However, this type of service – Twitter Events via Custom Twitter Nodes – would be much better if it were provided by Twitter itself.

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