IT Conversations: Ben and Mena Trott - Six Apart

Grok Headline matches for IT Conversations: Ben and Mena Trott - Six Apart

Congratulations Mena G. Trott and Ben
Trott

Congratulations Mena G. Trott and Ben
Trott 12/24/2004 12:46 PM

Mena G. Trott and Ben Trott of SixApart have been named People of the Year by PC Magazine. Congrats to both and that is one of the bigger Geek Awards one can win. [PC Magazine]

Mena Trott steps down as SixApart CEO

Mena Trott steps down as SixApart CEO 07/14/2004 03:38 PM
Mena Trott has stepped down as CEO of SixApart, makers of Movable Type and TypePad, in favour of Barak Berkowitz, one of their Series A investors. Mena's written a heartfelt appreciation of Barak that is an instant classic -- a unique example of a company founder's sincere desire to see her efforts bear fruit, even if she's not's in charge any longer (though she's staying on as President).

At our office, we had phone cables running up and down walls and doorframes and across the floor. This mess was around for months until one day Barak came to work with a T-shirt, some tool-belt type thing and some device to do phone wiring. During the course of the afternoon, Barak installed our phone lines and cleaned up the office.

Incidentally, while he was doing this, Maile, our administrative assistant came in for her first interview with us and saw Barak. A week or two later when we called her in for a second interview I asked that she speak with Barak so that he could interview her as well. After we hired Maile and explained who Barak was she laughed and said "Oh, I thought he was the handyman and that this company really liked to get everyone involved!"

Link (via Kottke)

Ben and Mena Trott: You forgot to dance
with who brung ya

Ben and Mena Trott: You forgot to dance
with who brung ya 05/14/2004 03:25 AM
After I wrote the post this morning, Ben and Mena Trott sucker punch the weblogging community, I had second thoughts about it, especially the title, which has a moralistic and judgmental tone that isn't appropriate. If it wasn't for my belief that it is almost always dishonest to rewrite something that you have already published (and that others have linked to), I would take the post down. Instead, I'm writing a new version of it: As I said earlier, Six Apart has the right to charge whatever the market will bear for their labor. So why are people so outraged, and why is it a questionable business decision? Is it just because Movable Type users are a bunch of whiners who want something for nothing, as some believe? I don't think so. Six Apart is reneging on a very public promise, and is treating the people who helped make Movable Type a success very poorly. A little history from a long-time user: Movable Type owes its success first of all to Ben and Mena having done a great job designing, implementing and updating a product with an excellent user interface and superb documentation, and secondly to having it ready at just the right time to catch the blogging wave. But the third factor in Movable Type's success was the army of evangelists and contributors who sold the products to their friends, businesses and community organizations, and who contributed bug reports, bug fixes, responses on the bulletin boards, and great plug-ins. In many ways, Movable Type was treated by the community like a Free Software project, which it wasn't. But the ethos of the MT 2.x license, if you make money off this software you have to pay, if you don't you don't, was very similar to that of MySQL and other open source companies, so people, in spite of warnings, ignored the significant differences between it and free open source. From a business point of view, Movable Type Personal was the seed product, or the loss- leader, that sold Movable Type Commercial. The other part of the history is that when Six Apart got VC funding and shortly thereafter started work on TypePad, it stopped work on its already announced 3.0 product, but didn't say anything publically about it for many months. Meanwhile, the Movable Type comment spam problem started and quickly threatened to grow to unmanageable proportions. As resentment...

Ben and Mena Trott sucker punch the
webl0gging community

Ben and Mena Trott sucker punch the
webl0gging community 05/13/2004 02:02 PM
Of course Six Apart has the right to charge whatever they want for MovableType, but having repeatedly said that they would provide a free version of MovableType 3.0 for personal use then announcing this crippleware that is MT 3.0 personal is stupid at best, dishonest at worst. Enraging your first customers and your developer community is a strange path to business success. Hopefully they will reconsider after being enveloped in the perfect storm that is brewing....

Mena Trott answers 6A's critics and
Geodog signs off on criticism

Mena Trott answers 6A's critics and
Geodog signs off on criticism 09/16/2004 03:40 AM
I wasn't planning on ever writing anything about SixApart and MovableType again, but today Kris Krug sent me mail alerting me to a lengthy interview he did with Mena Trott, where she responds to some of the recent criticism of Six Apart and the MT 3.0, and 3.1 releases: MT: One of the biggest things that I want to get through (and that I probably don't a good enough job of getting through) is that it's completely untrue that we're this big corporate company and that we don't care about the users-that it's all about just Ben and Mena and the venture capitalists. It's not so; there are so many smart people here who love what they're doing and love blogging. It dismisses their value when people say the company is just a big corporation that doesn't care about its users. People should understand that when you're insulting the company, you're insulting a lot of people. We're all good people and I wish everyone would take some time to see that. There are so many other targets to focus on; our little company from San Mateo is the least among them. The interview is worth reading in its entirety, if you are interested in the whole MovableType saga and some of the issues around the recent releases. To round out the view, or if you want a different perspective, check out long time MT user Ben Hammersley's opinion, Ben Trott's response, and 6A supporter and plug-in writer Timothy Appnel's comments. I myself have said more than enough about MovableType and SixApart, and gained some unwanted notoriety through a poor choice of weblog post titles. I've also have had my criticisms misrepresented, and Anil Dash has fairly called upon me to examine my criticisms. As a result I reread Anil's post about criticism, and reread for about the 10th time Phil Ringnalda's classic post on the same subject, there is no they, and I've decided not to spend any more time offering what Anil called "unsolicited criticism." We all have more important things to do. I will just note that I as I have said elsewhere thought MovableType was a was a brilliant product when I first encountered it. The documentation, user interface, features and support were superb. I enjoyed the time learning how to hack the templates and add plugins. I appreciated the ethos of the old MT license --...

Sean Trott in the news

Sean Trott in the news 03/13/2003 10:17 AM
I tried to tell this kid that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. But did he listen?...

Thoughtful post by Ben Trott on the
misconceptions people have about the
role of design in software development

Thoughtful post by Ben Trott on the
misconceptions people have about the
role of design in software development 12/13/2003 04:50 AM
Mena's every much of a programmer as Ben .. credit she deserves

sixapart.com/log/2003/12/software_develo.shtml
track this site | 6 links

"Mena による久し振りの長文
Entry"

"Mena による久し振りの長文
Entry" 07/14/2004 10:18 PM

Ben and Mena come to London...

Ben and Mena come to London... 07/09/2004 03:00 AM

So Ben and Mena and Loic have been in London for meetings and a few of us managed to get together and hang out with them for a bit. We've got Ben drinking warm flavoursome beer, Mena puffing away on cigarettes in pubs and Loic's been trying to run over small children with his push trolley. We even got to roam around Television Centre with them a bit today - Mena making a particularly fetching weather presenter.

Loic took some pictures too:

• Arriving in London
• A really nasty picture of me looking like I have a comb-over
• M ena posing with cigarette
• M ena presenting the weather

Read the comments

some clarification from Mena at Six
Apart

some clarification from Mena at Six
Apart 05/15/2004 07:05 PM
addressed some of these concerns today .. The Movable Type 3.0 FAQ .. posted a clarification .. this link to an update .. Mena and the changes .. explanation .. firestorm .. go over

sixapart.com/log/2004/05/movable_type_30.shtml
track this site | 12 links

Ben and Mena come to London

Ben and Mena come to London 07/10/2004 04:58 AM
weather presenter .. Tom Coates .. more

plasticbag.org/archives/2004/07/ben_and_mena_come_to_london.sht ml
track this site | 5 links

Ben and Mena, I take it all back!

Ben and Mena, I take it all back! 12/23/2003 12:23 AM
Ben and Mena Trott have made up in a big way for their earlier silence on future plans for MovableType. In a series of postings on Six Apart and MovableType, they have announced release of a security update to MT, support for Atom 0.3, and a feature list and time frame for MovableType 3.0.. It all sounds great, and to my surprise it seems that they intend to keep the current pricing structure, e.g. free for non-commercial use. I hereby volunteer to be a Beta tester. I and some others have complained publically and privately to about the lack of news regarding MovableType. I received some kind private email from Mena, but this kind of an announcement demonstrates better than anything that the Trotts listen to user feedback, and that they have not forgotten their first users. It makes me feel a little sheepish about my earlier criticism -- I hope that it was useful, in the way it was intended to be. Certainly the least I can do now is volunteer as a Beta tester and send some of my Christmas pin money their way, to help pay for all the engineering and usability work. To Ben and Mena and the rest of the team at MT/SA, thanks for all the news, and thanks for the hard work that it represents....

mena holds a gun to my head

mena holds a gun to my head 08/04/2004 03:21 PM
this is how we motivate workers at six apart

nice interview with ben and mena

nice interview with ben and mena 05/15/2004 07:09 AM
i like the part at 12:00 where mena gets genuinely choked up talking about how kind our users are

help ben and mena get on Yahoo! Most
Emailed

help ben and mena get on Yahoo! Most
Emailed 02/18/2004 09:35 PM
if our blogging tool was called "pair of boobs and a kitten" we'd already be number one

Ben and Mena make the Fast 50

Ben and Mena make the Fast 50 02/16/2004 01:17 PM
i am always amused by lists that treat the Trott as a single entity

mena on salon's six apart article

mena on salon's six apart article 08/09/2004 04:40 PM
it's always nice to have an outside perspective

"Mena on comment spam and the new
version of MT"

"Mena on comment spam and the new
version of MT" 12/24/2004 01:00 PM

Dear Ben and Mena, Thanks for lunch!
[Flickr]

Dear Ben and Mena, Thanks for lunch!
[Flickr] 02/05/2005 10:08 PM

"IT Conversations"

"IT Conversations" 08/17/2004 03:14 PM

mena on tightly knit bonds in bl0gging

mena on tightly knit bonds in bl0gging 07/09/2004 12:06 PM
the real weblog revolution and a defense of personal weblogs

MENA Mobile Subscriptions 60% below
Market Potential

MENA Mobile Subscriptions 60% below
Market Potential 09/13/2004 03:17 AM
The Middle East & North Africa region has only 45m current subscribers from an addressable mobile market of 115m. This large spread emphasizes the tremendous pent up demand and the profitability potential awaiting the mobile operators best suited to tackle this regions needs. [PRWEB Sep 13, 2004]

The IT Conversations Studio

The IT Conversations Studio 01/08/2004 08:12 PM
We're often asked about our recording setup. Since we produced our first IT Conversation in June 2003, we've continuously upgraded our equipment and processes, and if you listen to our shows in chronological order, you'll have no trouble hearing the differences. The photo at right shows part of our studio. For highest quality, and because we're four miles from the telephone company's central office, our studio telephone lines (since 9/16/03) are digital ISDN and are connected to a Telos-ONE digital hybrid through an Adtran Express 3000 terminal adapter. The caller and studio audio (from Electro-Voice RE20 dynamic microphones, as of 1/5/04) pass through a Behringer UB802 mixer and a Behringer Pro-XL MD2600 noise gate, compressor, limiter, and de-esser. As of January 2004, we've been recording digitally on a PC at 24 bits and 96kHz through an Echo MiaMIDI interface. We also record a backup direct to audio CD using the Marantz CDR300 shown above. For post production we normalize the tracks using Sony SoundForge 7.0 and clean them up with Sonic Foundry Noise Reduction. Staying in the 24/96 format, we then edit, EQ, and mixdown with Flavio Antonioli's n-Track Studio. Finally, we take our 24/96 files back to SoundForge where we use Wave Hammer and other tools to master for 16-bit, and convert to MP3 format using the Fraunhofer IIS encoder. Of course, after listening to IT Conversations squeezed into 32kbps/22,050Hz MP3s (to keep filesizes small), you probably wonder if it's worth all this trouble. Well, it really does help, but it's too bad you can't hear our beautiful originals! In the field we sometimes record on a Sony MZ-N10 MiniDisc recorder (shown on the right side of the photo) fed by Audio-Technica ATR35s lavalier microphones. The web site runs on a Linux server with Apache and mySQL. Server-side scripting is done in PHP, and we use the Smarty template package with home-brew caching and content-management software. MP3 streaming is done using a SHOUTcast server.

Debugging conversations

Debugging conversations 12/30/2004 09:55 PM
Wrote a lengthy piece, so I dropped it on a separate page:

"IT Conversations Sells Out"

"IT Conversations Sells Out" 04/03/2005 10:12 PM

Ideas for Better Conversations

Ideas for Better Conversations 04/06/2005 05:53 PM

The Idea: A summary of the importance of conversation as a catalyst of cultural evolution, the seven purposes of conversation, some 'cultural anthropology' on how conversations 'operate' today, and a first stab at some rules or principles we could learn and adopt to produce better, more effective and productive conversations. In my article Seeing the Big Picture (Building a Bigger Frame) I argued for the need for more expansive thinking to encompass, understand and build on different points of view, rather than reinforcing and polarizing those points of view through parochial and antagonistic argument. One of the crucial tools we use to exercise and expand our thinking is conversation, and it occurred to me that if we want to learn to think in ways that transcend the old, learning to converse in ways that transcend the old might be a good place to start. Humberto Maturana has said: Human existence takes place in the relational space of conversation. This means that, even though from a biological perspective we are Homo Sapiens, our way of living - that is to say, our human condition - takes place in our form of relating to each other and the world we bring forth in our daily living through conversation. If you're like me, you've engaged in your share of eavesdropping in public places -- restaurants, bars, elevators, cocktail parties, subway trains. What is disturbing is not that the subject matter and arguments are usually inane (though they are), but that the syntax, the flow, and the composition of the conversational threads are so awkward, sloppy, selfish and extravagant. It's been said that conversation is like a dance: It requires some grace, some courtesy to avoid stepping on your partners' toes, and agreement on who (at any point) is leading and who is following. Perhaps this is why conversations that involve three or more people at once are often so clumsy, more like a sequence of two-person conversations one after the other with (to strain the dance analogy) different people constantly butting in, usually before the song in progress has properly ended. Recently I read a wonderful quote that went something like this: Are you listening or just waiting your turn to talk? Sound like someone you know? A recent article< /a> by Australian Open Space practitioner Alan Stewart suggests five purposes for conversation: learning, reassurance, building trust, "working out what is important" and entertainment. Here's (I think) a more complete list from one of my 2003 posts: Educating: teaching or learning something useful or interesting Conceptualizing: Thinking out loud, organizing and articulating thoughts, challenging, understanding something better, reassuring Rehearsing: practicing to improve language skills Socializing: finding people with similar ideas, interests or ambitions Convincing: selling, seducing, persuading, engaging, building trust Assisting: helping others or getting help Entertaining: amusing, escaping, overcoming boredom, indifference, loneliness, shyness, or low self-esteem It's humbling to note that Bernd Heinrich provides examples in Mind of the Raven of all seven of these purposes to various raven vocalizations. And in his examples, ravens seem to be decidedly better at it than most humans. Perhaps that's due to the fact they've been around longer than we have, so they've had more practice at it. It couldn't be just that they have better manners, could it? ;-) In his article Stewart says: From circles of elders around ancient campfires to the conversations in the cafés and salons that spawned the French Revolution, people have always gathered for real conversation about questions that matter. In those times and places where innovation is born other simple conditions are also present. In addition to pursuit of a question that really matters and commitment to creating the space and time to explore it, it is crucial that mutual listening and a spirit of discovery infuse the conversations. A certain type of "magic" appears—the magic of a new collective intelligence arising from the individual minds present in the conversation. The wisdom needed to address the concerns of any group is already "in the middle of the circle" waiting to be tapped. These webs of conversations and the action commitments that naturally arise from them can serve as the energy generator, the amplifier, the core unit of change force for co-evolving the future in any system. He quotes Konrad Lorenz' on the hazards of conversation: "Said is not heard; heard is not understood; understood is not agreed to; agreed to is not carried out". This is a more concise way of laying out the enormous intellectual and emotional challenge entailed in conversation that I described in my That's Not What I Meant article . Here is a recap of my amateur observations about conversations from that post: Linguistics professor Deborah Tannenbaum says women and men (with some notable exceptions) converse in entirely different ways, and they converse differently with members of the opposite sex than with members of their own. Conversations have a myriad of complex but unspoken cultural norms, styles and rituals (taking turns, pausing, nodding, apologizing for interrupting or misunderstanding etc.) When two people with different norms, styles, or rituals try to converse, or when a third person ignorant of the styles or rituals shared by the other two tries to enter a conversation, the result is both comical and tragic. A form of violence, even. Most people don't appear to listen to what they themselves are saying. Many conversations include someone saying "I didn't say that" when in fact they did. I suspect if people listened to a tape or video recording of their conversations they would be stunned. They might never say anything again! Most of the real communication in a conversation is not in the words. It's in the nuances of body and eye language. It's in the tone of voice. It's in the pauses. It's in the physical proximity or distance of the conversants. Many effective conversations appear to be really interviews. That entails specific roles for the two conversants, with the interviewer's role being the more difficult and more important. If one person is mostly asking questions and the other person is doing most of the talking, it's an interview, not a conversation. Conversations with more than two people are generally either parallel sequences of two-person  conversations, or moderated conversations, where one person is clearly directing the conversational 'traffic'. Conversations would, I think, be much more effective if we had a ritual of having each conversant state upfront what their personal objective for the conversation is. I appreciate that in some cases this must be done tactfully: "I've wanted to meet you since Mr. A told me that you... ", or "I'm looking for some help with..." In the absence of such a protocol, a lot of initial conversations exhaust an enormous amount of participants' energy trying to figure this out tacitly. From watching online chat (the only written medium that in my opinion is fast and immediate enough to really qualify as 'conversation') and listening to young people especially talk, what people seem to want most from conversation with friends is reassurance. Everyone is always fishing for compliments and confirmation, and, unless and until they clearly know and trust the offerer very well, dubious of the offerer's motivation when they get them. Few people, it seems, are really looking for advice, debate, or 'constructive criticism' in a conversation. But many seem enthusiastic to offer these things anyway! You can tell almost immediately whether participants in a conversation trust each other or not. If you want to observe conversations where there is trust, go out for dinner a lot, and avoid offices and bars. I'm coming to believe that good conversation, like good collaboration, is a skill, and, just as a lot of practice dancing badly does not make you a better dancer, just talking a lot does not necessarily make you a better conversationalist (in fact I suspect it may make you worse at it, by entrenching bad habits). If it's a skill it should be possible to learn it and teach it. And, while the seven 'purposes' of conversations bulleted in red above might require somewhat different skills, I suspect that there is a basic conversational 'skill set' that is common to all purposes. The following list of 'rules' or 'principles' or 'elements' of good conversation constitute my first attempt at identifying what we would need to learn, and teach, to be better conversationalists. Unfortunately, it seems likely that the quality of the conversation will inevitably be at the level of the poorest conversationalist, just as the performance of a dancing couple will reflect the least-accomplished partner. This list is the result of thinking out loud, and I'm sure it is far from complete. Please join the conversation! We need to learn to do three things simultaneously: (a) listen intently and carefully to what others are saying, (b) think the arguments and concepts through in our own mind (and draw our own conclusions), and (c) articulate what we are going to say before we speak. This is extremely difficult, especially in a large group. If all participants do not do this, the result is a vicious cycle of poor conversation: not listening (and disengaging), not thinking, and not articulating properly, leading to more 'not listening'. We need to limit how many words we say before we allow, and encourage, others to speak, to keep the conversation 'in sync'. We need to allow pauses in the conversation, for people to catch up, and think coherently about what direction the conversation might most effectively go next. We need perhaps (I'm not sure) to allow and encourage people to pull themselves periodically out of the conversation and facilitate it as if they were non-participants: summarizing, time-checking, asking questions, drawing people out, even suggesting how the conversation might be made more productive. Is that presumptuous and manipulative? We need, as I suggest above, a 'ritual' (protocol) by which each participant and new entrant in a conversation begins with a brief upfront tactful statement of their personal objective for the conversation. We need another 'ritual' that would allow participants whose objective in the conversation is not being met to leave without excuse or apology and without other participants (even if there is only one!) taking offense. How else will selfish conversationalists ever learn? Back to the dance analogy, we need to evolve (or rediscover) tacit ways to cede and request the floor without interrupting the conversation or its flow, and tacit ways to invite or welcome others to join a conversation without side-tracking it with formal introductions. Could we evolve, as birds seem to have done, some graceful (good conversation, it seems to me, has a lot to do with grace) wordless gestures that would accomplish this, and allow us to signal that we would like to speak, who (if we have the floor) we are inviting to speak next, when we are finished speaking, that we understand, that we don't understand, that the speaker should let someone else talk, etc. We need to learn to read and understand body language, and to express body language unambiguously. It's an essential part of the conversation, and suppressing it or distorting it muffles the conversation. There is a new technology just announced that captures every conversation you participate in, records it, compresses it, and transcribes it. I'm ambivalent about this. Recording of conversations makes me shudder, yet it might allow us to retrieve information (contact information, context information) later that could be enormously valuable. We need to decide how to extract the benefits from such technology without incurring its risks, and without its trust-threatening and conversation-dampening attributes. We need to learn to be much better story-tellers, and more improvisational. We need to learn effective listening techniques, and critical thinking skills. Prevailing wisdom is that we need to be more respectful, more polite in our conversations. While I don't doubt this would be helpful, I'm not sure it can be taught or mandated. What are the 'model behaviours' that set an example for respect and politeness in conversations? What can we do to tactfully nudge those (especially when it's our boss!) who fail to demonstrate respect and politeness even when others are behaving in an exemplary way? OK, I've said (more than) enough. Thank you for listening. Your turn to speak.

Conversations with America

Conversations with America 05/09/2004 02:07 PM
Studs Terkel: Conversations with America (in Real audio).

AOL: AIM Conversations Are Safe

AOL: AIM Conversations Are Safe 03/14/2005 04:32 PM
America Online quells public criticism of changes to its AIM terms of service, insisting the controversial privacy clause does not pertain to user-to-user instant messaging communication.

100 Conversations with 100 CEOs

100 Conversations with 100 CEOs 05/17/2004 01:22 PM
This week Red Herring is hosting 100 Conversations with 100 CEOs from the Red Herring 100 on 100 Socialtext Weblogs -- an unprecedented opportunity for direct conversation with leading private companies. Socialtext is facilitating an Eventspace for Red Herring...

"Meg, Ev, Paul Bausch, Ben, and Mena are
PC Magazine's People of the Year"

"Meg, Ev, Paul Bausch, Ben, and Mena are
PC Magazine's People of the Year" 12/25/2004 05:03 PM

Free Range Conversations

Free Range Conversations 02/01/2005 10:09 PM

Besides the excellent content, it’s fun reading Karen Schneider’s Free Range Librarian blog these days because she’s discovering the sense of community and the unexpected level of conversation you get when you blog with open comments. I say “unexpected” because you never expect anyone else to really care enough to take the time to enter a comment, and yet it turns out a lot of people care enough. I never, ever anticipated that side of it, and it’s become one of the things I really love about my blog. Trackback fills in a whole other side of the conversation, the cross-blog one.

And that’s what library organizations don’t get – conversation. That’s why ALA, LITA, ILA, and other major institutions don’t blog, certainly not with open comments. Even this seems beyond their reach right now. But that’s what we need to open up – a conversation with the outside world, as well as amongst ourselves.

Bonus FRL quote (emphasis is mine): “Donning my lii.org hat, we had a remarkable education when we added RSS feeds. Now people find us through the blog-finding agents. Librarians, including me, suck at marketing, but by adding RSS feeds, we stumbled onto a way for the audience to find us, instead of the glacially slow process of dissemination through our existing readership.”

AOL 0wns Your iChat Conversations

AOL 0wns Your iChat Conversations 03/14/2005 05:45 PM

The Gray Box: Kitchen conversations

The Gray Box: Kitchen conversations 06/17/2005 06:30 PM
At some point, it occurred to me that the frequent kitchen conversations I was having with my wife River about tech were better than many podcasts I've heard. So, I'm recording and releasing them as a new podcast, The Gray...

"Submitting Audio to IT Conversations"

"Submitting Audio to IT Conversations" 12/22/2004 01:31 AM

Markets are (unpaid) conversations

Markets are (unpaid) conversations 08/19/2004 07:12 PM
Blogversations matches bloggers with advertisers. As far as I can tell from the not-enough-informational site, the blogger writes about some topic the advertiser suggests and gets paid for it. It's clear from the site's defensive writing, however, that Blogversations knows its project is in danger of being misunderstood ... or, perhaps, understood. Unclear from the site: Is the fact that the bloggers are getting paid made apparent? And where do these "conversation" occur? Unfortunately, there's no obvious way to get more information about what Blogversations is proposing except by registering. By the way, their phrase "markets are discussions" sounds oddly...

Speaking of funny IM conversations

Speaking of funny IM conversations 07/16/2004 08:39 AM

I think fake IM conversations are becoming a new legitimate form of satire. Here is one of the classics.

via snowchyld

Comment - TrackBack

When Private Conversations Are Thrust
Upon You

When Private Conversations Are Thrust
Upon You 06/14/2004 06:00 PM
Having just taken a cross-country flight a few days ago, I definitely noticed the growing trend of "wheels down, cell phones up" described in this article decrying the fact that private conversations are now quite public. It seemed like almost everyone on the plane pulled out a phone as soon as we landed. Admittedly, I was no exception, but I only checked voicemail and email messages while waiting for the plane to clear out. I didn't make a phone call until I was safely in the terminal and could find a quiet corner to hide in, while checking to make sure my ride was on its way. So many people seem to forget when they're on the phone that others around them really don't care about the private aspects of the conversation they're having. The article notes that it's sort of the reverse problem of protecting your own privacy. Instead, you get the private lives of others thrust upon you by everyone around you chatting away on their mobile phones. It's really not that difficult to find a somewhat more private place to go if you really need to discuss something privately.

Lots of great conversations to have

Lots of great conversations to have 03/14/2005 05:09 PM

So here I am at SXSW - and they won't let yah ask questions til the end. But there should be some really interesting conversations today.

Topics include:

- why do the A-list bloggers have some many disciples? As soon as they sit down out in the hallway, they're swarmed by legions of disciples.

- I wonder what the difference between 'emergent semantics' and emergent democracy'? Or better put "what's the difference between the semantic web and the SEMANTIC WEB?"

- the Macromedia people are here - and their stock is up. Apparently Wall. St. thinks their Flash Mobile strategy means something. But wait till people discover my former comapny - they'll go running in the opposite direction. The folks here seem nice enough - but if you got the kind of bosses they have - well I wouldn't wish it upon strangers. They (the bosses) will find some way of fucking this up - just like they have so many times before. The oly good news is rumors of a buyout. THEN maybe they can get some decent management in there.

- blogging showdown vs DIY or someone else will vs Bram Cohen interview - hmmmmmm. So many decisions to make.

- I ran into Harry Knowles. His "Aint-it-cool-news" is based here in Austin. I also got to meet his webmaster. They're one of my heros.

- Lots of other coolio panels like Open Source Marketing, We the Media, the New New economy and Red Sox Blog.

- and a Malcolm Gladwell keynote,

We doing a panel on open source infrastructure.

"IT Conversations News: April 1, 2005"

"IT Conversations News: April 1, 2005" 04/03/2005 10:12 PM

Grok Description matches for IT Conversations: Ben and Mena Trott - Six Apart
GrokA matches for IT Conversations: Ben and Mena Trott - Six Apart

IT Conversations: Ben and Mena Trott - Six Apart

The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: