New Artwork: Akashic Greencraft

I love working in digital media. The first part of my professional career was spent in Creative and Production positions for print where I picked up an abiding love for Photoshop. Combine that love with the Creative Commons and the love of the very notion of the collaborative online power of the Creative Commons in the first place and you can understand why I tend to fill up my free time with artwork like this.

Of course, since I started Grad School I really haven’t had much of what I would consider ‘free time’, so expect these as they come. In fact, I’m starting to think that I could turn this into a nice sideline, producing Creative Commons-based digital montages for use as desktop wallpapers. It gives me an excuse to build out that Joomla site I’ve had sitting there with the defaults up for a little while now.

Enjoy. The artwork above is produced entirely from Creative Commons: Attributions licensed source materials. I am licensing this derivative work as Creative Commons: Attributions, Share Alike, Non-Commercial rights. For more information on what that means, click the Creative Commons logo below.

Akashic Greencraft by Adam Pacio is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Why I like GaGa

Stefani Germanotta, bravo.  It takes a lot to be a cultural icon, but I do believe you’ve figured out how to pull it off. As a media and branding professional myself, I must say that I am rather in awe on many, many levels.

First of all, you’re an artist. I mean that to be a high compliment. You are conceptually sound, aesthetically brilliant, and technically seamless. The voice and the body definitely help, but as we both know there’s been many others out there with neither of those things who have managed to make a great name for themselves based solely on their artistic merit. You’ve got the voice. You’ve got the dancing. You’ve got the connection to the culture. You’ve got the artistic bits. People talk about the triple threat of singing, dancing, and songwriting. I think you’ve got more “threats” than we’ve seen in a long, long time.

And one of those threats is a command-level understanding of how to build a brand around yourself. Your first album was out for a bit, and friends of mine turned me on to listening to The Fame long before the songs hit the radio. I’m usually behind the pop curve, so that was a pleasant surprise to find someone I loved suddenly being picked up on by everyone else.

But you, Stefani, have worked the media and worked the media with the skills of a master manipulator. I don’t know if it’s just your natural business and branding sense, or if you’ve got an excellent advisor or mentor in that aspect, but you’ve got the business “it” factor, and the media “it” factor, and we’re all eating out of your hands because your art has delivered the crowds which advertisers love.

More later, but with the release of your second ‘mini-album’ today, I have to say I’m very, very impressed. You’re no flash in the pan, you know what you’re doing, and I can’t wait to watch as this unfolds. Just please stay grounded and true to yourself even as this experience changes you. Don’t let GaGa destroy Germanotta.

Otherwise, bravo once again. I usually don’t get into fanaticism over anything, but when it comes to all things GaGa, color me a fan.

Who knew? And bravo a third time to you, Stefani Germanotta. May this album you’ve released today simply be the next of many more yet to come.

‘Dangerous’?

I contributed to the Obama campaign, and now I’m on the Mitch Stewart/Obama mailing list which every so often reaches out to me for a small donation which is aimed to fight the Republicans at one thing or another. Usually I delete them. My “contributions” to an elected official are made annually in the form of something called “taxes”, so I don’t feel guilty at all about hitting that ‘delete’ key.

Today, I skimmed the request. Just because it was subject-lined “Sarah Palin”, and really, I just wanted to see what the hell Mitch and Barack were up to with regard to the no-nothing failed-administrator Sarah Palin who couldn’t even handle serving out the last bits of her Alaska Governorship because she would be a ‘lame duck’. Like, hello? That’s how it ends. Death in office, scandalous resignation, or a lame duck term. Ask any politician how they expect to leave office and chances are the answer will be one of those. So Sarah’s running around getting all of the people who are really blind to their own bigotry, or else too removed from the reality of present day America to understand why Palin is really a horrendous flake and an empty bag of talking points. All by taking the attention of the media and demonstrating that the Spin machine of the Republicans does a much better job at Branding than the Democrats do.

But we’re not Palin-bashing here. No, instead, I’m concerned about the state of the country in general. Because this is what Mitch’s email to me said:

Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn.

It’s dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term “Death Panels” — and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists.

‘Dangerous’?

Excuse me, Mitch Stewart and the copywriters over at the DNC who approved this tripe. Dangerous? As far as I can tell, all Sarah Palin is doing is exercising her Constitutional right to Freedom of Expression. And she’s got an audience who loves her, so there’s the choice of -those- People.  The only thing that makes me worried at all about a Palin candidacy for the Presidency next time around is the general overall ineptitude of the Democratic Party.

Let’s face it, guys. Palin shouldn’t *be* dangerous. The only incompetence that the Democrats need to worry about is their own. They control both Houses of Congress, AND they control the White House. There may be some committee shenanigans and fillibusters and all of that to contend with, but the Democrats have done NOTHING since they took office. Nothing promised on the campaign trail has happened. And there’s really no excuse. The economy is still in the shitter, unless you happen to be a banker or a Corporate CEO.

Part of the problem is that the Democrats have tried so long to be Republicans, that there’s no difference now between them. Neither party has a strong central message or identity except to NOT be the Other guys. Blue or red, same damned difference. Same screw over of the little guy, the ‘We the People’ that the government is supposed to serve. Same propaganda machines, and hot-button issues. Same assholes in the Halls of the Capitol worried too much about how much money they’ll raise for next term’s elections and too little about how to do the job that their constituency sent them there to do in the first place.

Give me back a Congress full of contention and strife, of loud voices and red faces, banging gavels and impassioned speeches. Give me a Congress where the representatives felt very keenly just how invested they themselves are with what actions they are pursuing. Where they actually know what they’re voting on, and spend more time on the Hill than away from it telecommuting in.

Stop blaming the Republicans, Mitch. Mitch and Barack both. Just stop. Stop blaming other people and put your own houses in order while you still have the time. Because if you don’t, then the pendulum will shift the other way and the Republicans will grind you under like the losers you will be.

Make no mistake. If Palin beats you, then it’s YOUR fault. Your loss. Not her victory. It will mean that Palin’s got the attention of the American people because she can communicate with them better. And we both know that Palin’s not the winning communicator… Obama is.

It also would mean that it was time to seek emmigration from the United States to Canada or Ireland or Norway or one of the other Enlightened nations with socialized health care. I’m not pro-Republican nor pro-Palin (nor anti-America) by any means. But I am anti-incompetence, anti-corruption, and anti-political parties in general. We Americans are no longer number one in the world at very much that matters. We are no longer a culture where intelligence, industry, creativity, and vision are valued, supported, and rewarded. Our formal cultural institutions are dying, and our schools are already comatose. We need more than just a revitalization… we need a Renaissance. A global Renaissance, to shore up the lost ground that institutionalized religion has taken from the Enlightenment over the last few decades. We need a robust and thriving middle class, a people better able to share in the fruits of their own labors than the Boards of Directors have been setting lately.

Maybe it’s because we’ve been let down by so many so often, that it’s just impossible for us to care any more about the old system of politics and old social conventions. Break this cycle, Barack. Stop people from begging for money when you’re not on a campaign trail. Use the tools that the system gives to you to reform the system. Be Barack Obama the leader of the Democratic National Party. It’s time to set the policy of your party, as well as for the nation. And use the influence we gave you to fix things. Stop seeking consensus, and start waging victory. You aren’t the campaign front-runner any more, Barack. You’re our President. Stop campaigning and start ruling, to the fullest extent of the laws which empower the ethical exercise of your Office.

Or start seeking another job, because with more of this for the next three years, you won’t hold on to the one you’re in. Not by my vote. I’ll seek a third candidate if it comes to that, and use my voice to try and convince others to do the same.

Liquid Narrative

Alex Halavais, one of my professors from Quinnipiac University, wrote a great summary on whether or not to pursue a PhD, and some of the considerations which surround that ‘terminal degree’ step. One of which is knowing who is out there doing the kind of research which is really interesting to you. Folks who know me know that I’m a bit of a wordsmith when given the time to write, and anyone who has watched a film with me will attest to the fact that I analyze plot, story development, pacing, and the craft of storytelling within various media the same way that some people breathe. It just comes naturally, and I don’t even think about what I’m doing as I do it.

As a previous post here has pointed out, I’m very interested in the way that story development and practical storytelling has been influenced by digital media. I’ve got some theories brewing but no time or funding in which to turn them into full-fledged research studies just yet.

Happy Find

I’m technically not out of my full time commitments just yet this week, so I’ll keep this short. I think I’ve found something academic within the halls of digital media research which could get the noggin humming again for a while. It’s a research web site attached to North Carolina State University, called “The Liquid Narrative“. From their website:

The Liquid Narrative research group at North Carolina State University’s Computer Science Department works in the area of procedural content generation — the creation of content for interactive games and other virtual environments — that uses models of narrative to build stories and tell them automatically.

A cursory glance into the research findings shows some real promise. At the very least, I know what names to do some research on back at my Alma Mater’s library just to begin developing the bibliographical list of other researchers whose work I should become acquainted with. Colleagues within the field. NCSU might be a good match for my interests. Or it might point me to a rival school, or a different research group which offers something closer to my interests. If they’re even quantifiable interests at all.

But I did want to highlight the Liquid Narrative web site as a great place to look at what some scholars are studying in the area where games, stories, and technology collide.

 

It’s a “website”, dammit!

I don’t care what the currently established rules of grammar and spelling say.

Yes, yes, I know. The ‘proper’ spelling is to use two words, adjective specifier and then noun: Web Site. What kind of a ‘Site’? One pertaining to the ‘Web’. Thus a ‘Web Site’. With a space in between. This is how the modern rules of grammar insist we spell website. Many linguists apparently have already met in their secret conclaves, colleges of grammatical Cardinals all, and pouring out on the white smoke arose the papal decision revealed from on high… ‘web site’ it is, ‘web site’ it would have been before had we known about the web, and therefore ‘web site’ it will always be.

No thank you on the extra space. I was a Spanish major as an undergrad and I’m a writer by calling if not by profession.  I completely understand the logic and reasoning behind ‘Web Site’ as two words. I get it.

And yet, I disagree.

Dictionaries and Grammars: Prescriptive or Reflective?

I subscribe to a rather different viewpoint, from a conceptual point of view. First, I believe that dictionaries and grammars are ultimately reflective, not prescriptive. That is, the rules of grammar, spelling, or definitions do not get handed down by what is written in the rule books. The rule books do not prescribe the rules from some sort of absolute authority or red phone to the capital-T Truth. If this were the case, why would we ever need to reprint the dictionary or release annual updated editions?

Instead, the dictionary and the grammatical rule books are written to describe what is held as common usage and commonplace understanding within the culture. It reflects what is already there. Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not and never has been reflective of the entire culture or cultures using the language. There’s a certain amount of exclusion and intellectual snobbery involved. Remember the kerfluffle over the very concept of ‘Ebonics’ in the 90’s? As multiculturalism gained credence we suddenly were confronted with the notion that other subcultural groups would also have valid need for their speech and language patterns to be included in the rulebooks as well. The fact that these more controversial elements were attached to minority groups should also provide a context for how I mean that the dictionary and the grammar books are not a perfect mirror, although they do primarily reflect, not prescribe.

Why ‘website’ instead

I believe that a website is a unique entity conceptually. The influence of the world wide web introduced an entirely new paradigm in communications, and if you change someone’s communication patterns you force a change in how they ultimately think. This new unit within the new communication style is really a conceptual entity divorced from the language of geography. After all, if a ’site’ is a location, where is the web site? It can “be” on several computers in many locations globally simultaneously. And yet it is located only in the sense of where the original code is stored. Given the ability now with Clouds and Content Delivery Networks, there’s even some diffusion of any single geographical location for the source code now, too.

Given that the web is now a unique cultural medium of communication which had no equivalent prior to the development of the internet, and given the lack of overall relevance which geography continues to play on the retrieval of the information (there’s even cracks in the Great Firewall of China), I personally think it’s time we recognized the paradigm shift with a change in semantics as well.

Language shifts and changes over time. Once upon a time, you wiped your mouth at dinner with a ‘napron’. Slowly it became an ‘apron’ instead, with the leading ‘n’ shifting over to become ‘an’, and the word jumped to the front of the dictionary by now starting with ‘a’. I think that it makes sense to call a collection of related content pages on the web a ‘website’.

Save the extra space. Embrace the new paradigm. If nothing else, it’ll make your copy editors twitch.

Reading the FTC ‘new rules’– What’s an ‘ad’ anymore?

In my last post I went off on the FTC without reviewing the guides, taking Wired.com’s article summation at face value, because I trust Wired.com and because I just don’t really have the time today to read through the official documentation.

I thought I’d better start by reading through the official documentation, though, because otherwise the post just sounds like “I’m pissy! And I don’t really know why!”

Only three pages in so far, and I think I’m going to have to shout even louder. There’s some real zingers of phrases in here. For one thing, check out the following new rule:

[A]n endorsement means any advertising message (including verbal
statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature, likeness
or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name
or seal of an organization) that consumers are likely to believe reflects the
opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of a party other than the
sponsoring advertiser, even if the views expressed by that party are
identical to those of the sponsoring advertiser. - FTC rules (pdf)

So what does this mean? No, seriously…  look at it above.  If someone gives you something for free, and you later write about it, even if you’re not getting any actual monetary compensation, the value of the item you received promotionally can be argued to form “sponsorship”. Because you took the freebie, you are now “sponsored” by the advertiser. Anything you say about the product, even if it’s really what you as a person truly believe and not some paid statement, is now subject to the FTC’s new rules.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!

This is pretty broad, and pretty slippery language. There’s an awful lot of wiggle room, and it looks like it’s perfectly designed to pave the way for advertisers to start suing the crap out of people who make posts about products which compete with their own. Or just because. Or for the media conglomerates to start filing complaints in an effort to remove online endorsements to help them shore up their own for-profit advertising efforts, which is the bulk of how they make their money.

This is just on the first couple of pages. (Incidentally the FTC posted these rules for public comment… only 17 comments were filed, most of them from media companies or advertising consortia.)

More as I have more time to review the doc. But I’m already upset by this shameful abuse of authority.

FTC’s got it backwards

The new kerfluffle on Wired about the FTC’s requirement for citizen bloggers to reveal freebies or face up to $11K in fines is bass-ackwards.

It says that the “established” sites like Consumer Reports don’t need to disclose their information on getting freebies as compensation for reviews, but amateur bloggers do.

I haven’t read the guidelines, but I can tell you right now it’s doomed to failure because of how backwards it is. If I had more time I’d read the actual guidelines, but I’m a little perturbed because Wired specifically mentions “amateur” bloggers, which to me means that there is no advertisements or income being generated on the site.

You know what? If I’m not getting paid for it, it’s none of the Federal Trade Commission’s business. If I’m choosing to express my point of view online, there are already checks and balances on the freedom of expression (libel and slander judicial precedents, for example, well established in Supreme Court cases). If I want to talk about a pair of jeans I got for free, I shouldn’t have to “disclose” that they were free. If I like the product, I like the product. If my personal endorsement carries so very much weight that the FTC needs to get involved, then I must be missing out on the tremendous opportunity to capitalize on Being Me.

This smacks of continued attempts by the mainstream media lobbying groups to curtail the freedom of expression online in a misguided attempt at using legislation to punish individual freedom of expression by whatever sorry excuse possible.The desire to “make the information on the internet more reliable” would be much better served by channeling all of the current military budget into educational reform in this country. Maybe if we stopped producing a country full of the willfully ignorant we’d see the general information quotient rise online.

And really.. the folks the FTC *should* be after are the established companies who try to pose as amateur bloggers through created online personae which they then use to drum up positive PR for their products with. THAT’s the real enemy here. The corporations and advertisers. Not the real bloggers.

This blog post was produced while the blogger used free air.

Day’s Email tally

After two days off for illness, I returned today to find 300+ emails awaiting my attention. Using my new method, I’ve been working steadily on emails all day. I logged in at 9am sharp. It’s 3:30pm now. Minus one hour-long meeting and the 15 minutes it took to make a run to the Border drive-thru for lunch, leaving 4.5 hours worth of essentially just going through emails today.

I still have 65 emails left to go, of which 54 are unread/new emails. Hey, at least I caught up to today.

To Wong Foo

In memoriam to Patrick Swayze, I’m Netflixing the Patrick Swayze movies I’ve loved over the years. To Wong Foo started up, and I had a question on trivia that I haven’t yet been able to find online.

In the movie, they are inspired by an iconic photograph of Julie Newmar, on which she has written “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar” (which becomes the title of the film). Now… my question is this. Did the illustrious Julie Newmar actually make that autograph in real life, or was it just a clever device for the film? If it was done in real life, then my question, my *real* question, is… Who’s Wong Foo?

The real Wong Foo, that is. If there is one.

The things I think of.

Email management and results

I just realized that I never quite got back to posting the email processing technique I learned. In the crush of business recently, it got left behind. I have a moment this morning. Let me share as I prep for my day.

Email Management Using Outlook

1) Set up Categories for all of your clients. I also include the following:

• In Progress – For work which is going on longer than one day which you have already begun response to.
• Admin – for any official notices or departmental practices which you need to hang on to
• Keepers – for any of the rare gems of emails which come through you will want to keep (usually the good office humor)

2) Set up inbox folders, one for each category you have set up. (All of this is kind of basic, but it sets up the system).

3) The system itself – keep your inbox clear. That’s the goal. Think of it as an adult game of Tetris, but you want to keep the inbox completely clear.

When a piece of email arrives, open it and read it from the attitude of playing ‘keep away’. Ask yourself, “Whose problem does this need to become next?”  Need info from someone else to draft the response? Pass it along to them. Is there an action item that someone on the team needs to take care of? Pass it along to them. This step is involved in legitimately moving the task along the system until it gets to the person who provides the information.

Once the email is tasked, asked, forwarded, etc., tag it by the Category of the client it belongs to and then immediately drop it into the corresponding Client folder.

If the email is something that you need to take care of, figure out when you need it done by and how long it should take to do it given an inconvenient amount of work interrupting it. Set a Follow Up reminder flag on the email to remind you about it given about 1.5x the amount of time you think it will take you to complete it given an inconvenient simultaneous workload.  (Think that between phone calls, other emails, bosses walking by, and last-minute meetings you can give the answer to the email within two hours of working? Set the reminder to go off three hours before the email response is due).  Then tag it by the appropriate client and then move it into the In Progress folder, and move on to the next email.

If the email is a confirmation, acknowledgment, or a conversation you are being Copied on without needing your action, assign it to the right client category and immediately drop it into the client folder.

Continue processing the emails until everything is out of your inbox. Note that it’s not just sorting, there’s action taken on every single email you process, including setting up reminders which are your safety net… if you haven’t gotten to the email by the time the effort is ‘due’ you’ll get a nag from Outlook with just enough time on it to send you into a panic and yet still have time to hopefully get it done.

Processing Times vs. Working Times

Once you get the inbox clear, so they tell me, you can set up specific periods of the day which you use to actually process through all of your emails. The start of the day, right after lunch, and just before going home are three good touch points. If you get a lot of email, you need about an hour to process it all. If you get less email, less time needed.

Process the emails at those times. Clear out that inbox at the beginning, middle, and end of the day.

Then, once the inbox is empty, go through the In Progress folder and prioritize the emails you’ve got in there. I’ve heard recommendations to start with the small stuff first and clear out the volume of emails you can. This is a good tip for those of us who constantly struggle with lots of emails for work.  I’ve also heard recommendations to start with a major, substantial task and work solidly on it to get it out of the way. Once you’ve reached the point at which you are Working the In Progress pile, you should already have gotten rid of a majority of the messages in your inbox, so this should represent a closer look at the To Do list of the day, so prioritize however your press of business dictates.

Of course, there’s a catch

Emails don’t always allow for time to ignore them. As you’re working, you need to pay attention to the popup boxes with the teaser text from any new emails which arrive. If it’s important, jump right on it. If it’s unimportant, either delete it right away or else tag & bag it, categorizing it by client and then dropping it into the client’s folder.  Whatever you can’t get to, process when you hit one of your processing times.

How’s it working so far?

For me, this model of immediate attention during a more active sorting or processing phase helped me to increase my email handling capacity.  However, the sheer volume of email and tasks I get still outpaces this method by far. Also, because I’m in launch-prep mode, I have been spending a lot of time herding cats away from my desk, so in the last 2 days my uncategorized emails jumped back up to 225+, and that’s with the processing I’ve been able to do.

At least I’m more efficient at responding now. And the bigger chunks are more easily visible. So there’s some improvement. I’ll see about stepping it up even another notch. But there really does come a point at which there just isn’t enough time or energy in the day to get to everything you need to, and when every day brings you the work of multiple days, sometimes you just lose the ability to keep track of anything beyond one or two projects at a time, so you juggle as best you can and hope that some problems will resolve themselves by being ignored (hey, it happens once in a while).