connecting*the*dots

(originally uploaded by lanadandan)

That’s all, folks.

I’ve been steadily moving towards shutting down c*t*d for the last six months or so and today seems to be as good a day as any to make it a reality.

At some point, I plan on relaunching seancoon.org, but it’ll take on a much more creative slant, focusing on the output of my personal craft.

What that means exactly, I’ve no idea. And that is, well, that is truly exciting.

If you’d like to stay in touch on these internets, you’ll be able to find me at a few different spots:

• dotmatrix project
• flickr
• facebook
• twitter

A big thanks to everyone who participated here over the last two years.

Adios, amigos.

Steve Gilliard passed away today after a long recovery battle following open heart surgery.

If you weren’t a reader of The News Blog, let me give you a sense of Steve’s voice.

He wasn’t a fucking apologist.

Steve took a concrete position on practically every issue that came across his desk, and more often than not he was spot on, bulldozing double-talk, bullshit policy and spin across the board.

I never met Steve in person, yet it feels like I lost a close friend today.

You’ll be missed, Steve.

Cara Michele Forrest is one of the good people, fighting the good fight. She’s a tireless advocate for the rights of homeless people in Greensboro, NC.

When I say tireless, I’m not using empty rhetoric. Below is a shot of her in front of the NightWatch truck that hits the back streets of Greensboro each and every Friday night, usually getting her — the mother of teenagers — home well after 2am.

She’s a mixture of spunk, sass, righteousness and southern momma to boot. It’s hard to imagine anyone not appreciating her take no prisoners attitude when it comes to serving the needy in our community.

Well, don’t look now, but it’s starting to look like she’s catching some blowback for her no nonsense approach to advocacy.

It’s not coming from her friends on the street.

And it’s not coming from Greensboro residents or businesses who more often than not have adverse relationships with the homeless in town.

The unfortunate element of this story is that the flak she’s beginning to receive is from players within the very same agencies that she works with on a daily basis, in the common goal of eliminating homelessness in Greensboro and Guilford County proper.

Who Is Cara Michele Forrest?

There are a bunch of issues at play here and being that Michele is too good of a soul to air some of the details — she’s too humble to frame the issues in the context of her daily life on the off-chance of making it about her rather than the work she’s doing — I’m going to play advocate for her position.

If you have any issues with this post, it’s my thinking, reasoning and positioning.

Mine and mine alone.

Let me start off by stating that Michele isn’t a career advocate — she doesn’t take a salary to help people; she helps people because it’s a part of her calling.

It’s how she walks that fine and narrow line with Jesus.

So when push comes to shove, Michele not only has zero reasons to back away from doing everything she can to serve her community, but she refuses to bow to situations that might lead her off that narrow path.

Basically, she’s the type of person that gives Christianity a good name.

I bring this up to distinguish Michele’s character and her purpose in life. It’s what makes her such an amazing advocate. She doesn’t serve the numbers of homeless folk in town; she serves her friends in need.

She listens.

So when she tries to advance the notion that there are homeless people that can and should represent their own needs during Task Force conversations — meetings that eventually craft an approach to helping the homeless — and it falls on deaf ears, she feels wounded.

Or the time Michele worked out a program with the Greensboro Public Library to provide library cards to the homeless (usually reserved for people with proof of residency in Greensboro), but the providers in town failed to see the importance of the program and wouldn’t agree to vouch for the people they serve.

To a soul like Michele, it’s just another example of talking loud and doing nothing.

The Bottom Line

Over the last month or so, Michele has become increasingly upset with the bureaucratic machinations of the homeless industry that she finds herself dealing with on a daily basis.

She refuses to give me details regarding most of her problems — being the narrow path, tightrope walker that she is — but I know she feels that there might be improprieties in play with the operations of the Homeless Prevention Coalition of Guilford County.

A few days ago, she openly questioned an element of a certain initiative — something innocuous like the non-announcement of its launch date — but after following up internally and getting an answer she retracted the post.

Maybe she should’ve posted an update to the post with the newly found information, but she killed it instead, so all parties involved should’ve been satisfied.

Not quite.

The HPCGC now wants her blog, Chosen Fast, de-linked from their member page, stating:

“The HPCGC website is not the place to share your personal opinions and thoughts, particularly ones that are contrary to the success of the Coalition. No one’s trying to stop your advocacy, Michele, but you need to use the proper channels.”

If the HPCGC considers a link to a blog “sharing personal opinions and thoughts” they’re sitting a bit too close to their monitors.

What their position says to me is that they’re extremely controlling with their organization, and particularly inept regarding the role of the internet and their objectives in the 21st century.

More precisely stated; they value appearance over substance.

Sounds like some marketing and PR consultants have made a buck or two over there.

Here’s a little insight of my own (for what its worth):

You don’t gain trust and credibility with your clients, customers, constituents or neighbors by coming off overly slick, rounded and without flaws; you gain such respect by delivering for them while allowing yourself to be viewed as a human being.

Try to name one organization on this planet that isn’t made up of the blood, sweat and tears of human beings.

You can’t.

So why represent yourself or your organization otherwise?

I’m sure the people at HPCGC think they’re doing “the right thing,” but this is how bureaucrats stomp the passion out of people trying to make a positive difference in the world — people who are more concerned with the well-being of the people they serve than becoming a sycophant to folks who are primarily concerned with their job security.

It’s not right and it’s not fair, to both Cara Michele and her homeless friends.

And the bottom line is that it’s just not good business.

(uploaded by veen)

I was one of the first Measure Map users back in the day and *loved* it — so much so that I reviewed it twice. Unfortunately, when Google bought the alpha version of Measure Map, they seemed to be more concerned with landing the talent behind it than the product itself.

Well, I knew Jeff was good, but now I get the method to Google’s madness.

From the look of the above screenshot, Jeff Veen and team have been super-busy spreading UXD goodness to ridiculously complex data views. When I finally dumped Measure Map last year, I ended up running with Shaun Inman’s beautifully designed Mint analytic package instead of the super functional Google Analytic tool, which just seemed like overkill.

I was also more than happy to support a brilliant, independent designer & developer..

So basically, I’m hoping that it’s really hard to hook Google Analytics into this blog. The above screenshot is calling me like a lobbyist does a congressman.

(originally uploaded by cyu06)

I don’t exactly know what gear I’m moving into, but I’m definitely popping the RPM’s as I write this.

My day-to-day has evolved from a free fall of focus two years ago to a full-time operation running dotmatrix, collaborating with more than a handful of clients with unique and challenging work, assisting with the planning of this year’s ConvergeSouth and attempting to get The People, Yes off the ground.

In between those extremes of exploration and consternation, I found myself using this spot for sharing, pimping, contextualizing, opining, pointing and anything else under the sun I found valuable and interesting.

Well, it’s about time I get focused.

Yeah, I had a similar “state of the blogger” moment a few months back, but this time I’m a bit more motivated to down-shift into documenting my various efforts, especially along the lines of The People, Yes.

I refuse to become myopic or dry — graffiti, lyrics, images, poetry; all have a place — but I am making a turn, hopefully for the better.

Hold on, please.

Someone needs to stick to geek publishing.

(originally uploaded by lisa scheer)

Today is day two of the voting for Netsquared’s Technology Innovation Fund. If you haven’t yet stopped by to vote for The People, Yes, please do so. If we place, we’ll receive solid funding and development resources desperately needed to get us off the ground.

If you’re a blogger, talk show host, stewardess with a captive audience, etc., I’d greatly appreciate your help pointing folk in that direction as well.

Thanks so much.

This new parody of Ed’s blog is killing me. Whoever is responsible, please don’t out yourself, just keep dropping the hits.

And yes, I got spoofed as well:

Yo, yo, yo. Joisey in da house.

I’m so plugged in I can’t stand myself.

Heh.

Chris Anderson and Will Hearst talking shop in May of 2006:

Publisher, Will Hearst, on the evolution of journalism:

[..] In the era of 20 years ago, there was a notion of a professional journalist — I’m not saying let’s race back to that era — what I’m saying is that notion is utterly gone. And what we are seeing as so-called professional journalism is really freelance material, shot in Baghdad, shipped to New York, somebody voice-overs it and that’s supposed to be “live news.”

And we’re covering Israel out of London and we’re covering Nairobi out of Tokyo, you know, we’re kidding ourselves. So in a way, I think the cure is not to go backwards, but to go forwards and to label that stuff and get more of that material and do away with this pseudo-professional news, which it really isn’t.

I mean if we’re gonna have “citizen journalism,” then let’s have it. […]

I completely appreciate the sentiment, but Will Hearst knows better than anybody that isn’t going to occur through the existing mainstream channels.

Mainstream news outlets — television and newspaper alike — are busy attempting to figure out how to keep the best parts of their old revenue model in place while leveraging the independent voices of the information age.

While the conglomerates look for new ways to count the same beans, innovative distribution models with decentralized reporting have already taken hold.

This shouldn’t be the cornerstone of the conversation, though. Even without an organized effort to distribute decentralized reporting, there are already 30 million active blogs in play around the world.

The news is becoming hyper-local and hyper-topical without the steady hand of industry drivers to guide it; traditional journalism is going the way of the stock broker.

Now traditional ethics? Well, that’s another story entirely…

(shot by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

We’ve moved the monthly Blogsboro Meetup to:

M’Coul’s Public House (blip.tv | flickr | site | directions).

We’ll be on the second floor tomorrow evening, beginning at 7pm. M’Coul’s has working wifi, so feel free to bring your laptops.

Again, this event is open to anyone interested in publishing to the web, so Allen, Ed, David, et al of the N&R crew, feel free to grace us with your presence.

I’ll even bring a bottle of wine if you’d like. ;)

In the future, please RSVP on Upcoming. Thanks.