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I'm a venture guy, living virtually here www.igniter.com and physically in London, Canada. I venture because it's what I do. Want to say hi? You can email me at michael at igniter dot com. |
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An interesting survey highlighting the influence of technology and culture in our society by Pew Social Trends. Full report -> http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/pdf/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf
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Scene of the snowman massacre.
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Wondering if my student number will still work. I do remember it.
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Memories of late night projects
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Flash of light…
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notes Join the COCKTAIL PARTYIt’s Time to Join THE COCKTAIL PARTY
Are you nauseated and frightened by the growth of Tea Party organizing, and the zany old white people in funny hats at the center of the current media blitz? It’s time to fight back! Join The Cocktail Party, a barstool-roots movement for left wing urban homosexuals and the people who love us. We crafted [our] list of policy goals with the intention, minimally, of driving the Tea Partiers crazy with rage. Because we are exactly who they think we are–a motley crew of miscegenated sex crazed lushes who read Marx and Fanon, seeking to support our lifestyles by taking resources from the rich and powerful and redistributing them with abandon.
I want to be part of your party, but I do not drink alcohol, and I can’t live without tea. :( :( :( :( :(
OMFG awesome. it’s brilliant.
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"Logos-inspired evolution was materialistic and conquest and consumption-oriented. The alternative to it is evolution centered on human development and development of human communities.” This quote frames the remainder of the book which suggests we are moving from:
a focus on ends of conquest, colonization, and consumption
which were served by technologies that use and transform matter, that generate the power to operate matter-transforming technologies, and that whet people’s appetite, create artificial demand, and shift patterns of consumption.
Replacing those ends are the means and ends of connection, communication, and consciousness.
Some of the specific mindset shifts uncovered include:
The shift from competition to reconciliation and partnership
The shift from greed and scarcity to sufficiency and caring
The shift from outer to inner authority
The shift from separation to wholeness
The shift from mechanistic to living systems
The shift from organizational fragmentation to coherent integration" -
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"It feels a little bit like Buzz was the product of raw engineering talent, designed without a purpose in mind. “Because we can” does not equal “because it matters."
@umairh on Google Buzz - Harvard Business Review
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Dear Google,
Bright and early I logged into one of my favorite services and saw this news.
You’ve been catching a lot of heat lately. The echo chamber seems to think you want to be everything to everybody. As though dominating our search box wasn’t enough, now you want to control our friendships, our health records, what we carry in our pockets and the pipes into our homes.
I for one welcome out new overlord. Not because you will dominate in all of these categories or even do any of them all that well. Frankly, I think many of the powerful subtleties of these servies and devices will be lost on you.
No, I welcome you because each time you plant a stake in the ground it makes everyone uncomfortable. It makes them nervous. Because as much as we love to hate you, your engineers and your reach scare us.
You see, we need competition. It brings the best out of us. We can fall into the rut of seeing nice month over month growth and increasing market share that leads to high fives ‘round the board room tables for meeting our modest metrics. As true as this scenario is in start ups, its even more true in large companies who’ve been holding back innovation in the fields of mobile, media, telecom, energy, health and education.
Yes, you’ll make missteps and may never gain the kind of presence in any of these categories that you have in search, but I don’t think that’s your point. I think you see the same complacency we see in very large markets and want to rattle the cages to remind us we’re all still alive and we all need to compete every day to deliver the best possible experience for our customers.
Look, I’ll probably never own a Nexus One, but I think my iPhone will be better for having you put Apple’s feet to the fire. I may never switch from Comcast, but I bet they’ll up their service level and bandwidth speeds with you in the market. And I may never store my health records with you, but I bet we’ll get closer to a transparent health system with you in the mix.
So, thank you Google for a reminder that the aim of competition is to bring the best out of us all. Oh, and, Game On!
XOXO,
bryce.vc
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"Passion trumps inhibition in the service of new connections; shared passion provides a foundation for diverse relationships; and these relationships provide both stability and inspire growth for its members. ~@jhagel"
