I often get questions about how I get the time to blog and maintain all my online activity in addition to regular work, family life and all those other important things we all have to do. My answer is: I don’t watch television and I know my tools.
A while ago Clay Shirky did some math and figured that Americans could produce one complete wikipedia project every weekend if they stopped watching commercials on TV.
And he’s not only showing you how wikipedia is a tiny project. He has some thoughts on gaming as well:
In this same conversation with the TV producer I was talking about World of Warcraft guilds, and as I was talking, I could sort of see what she was thinking: “Losers. Grown men sitting in their basement pretending to be elves.”
At least they’re doing something.
Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan’s Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don’t? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn’t posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list.
I must admit that I didn’t like the commercial on the plane I boarded this morning on my flight from Frankfurt to Vienna. I’m sorry, but my experience with Microsoft products doesn’t give me a sense of security and reliability. I know Microsoft want me to think of such values, but I don’t. And I really, really want to think of security and reliability when I board a plane.
Think twice when you place commercials. Without this one you wouldn’t have reminded me of the bad parts of my experience with your products. You end up paying to hurt your reputation.
Seems like May is the month for conferences. I have a pretty tight schedule, but if you’re in the area then drop me a line. This is my international presentations for the next couple of weeks:
Vienna, April 25 - 11th Roundtable Presentation & On-Air Promotion Lucerne, May 8 - EBU Connect (link to PDF program) Amsterdam, May 19 - THE 124th AES CONVENTION Amsterdam, May 29 - EMBRACING NEW MEDIA IN YOUR PUBLIC RELATIONS AND CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY
People keeps comparing those services. I don’t get it. They’re completely different. Twitter is an open conversation and a place where you meet new friends. Facebook is a closed conversation and a place where you meet old friends.
I just did a quick count. On twitter I follow 299 people. And 37 of them are friends to the level that I would have said hello if I met them on the street. On Facebook 151 of my 200 friends are at the same level.
That said. Currently I rarely visit Facebook. And I use Twitter all day long.
I’m sharing a lot of my knowledge here at eirikso.com. I’m sharing images on flickr and SmugMug, quick thoughts on twitter and presentations on Slideshare.net. The internet is fantastic for sharing content and I think sharing is a very good idea. It’s simple - if you share, people share back. I learn a lot by structuring my thoughts enough to be able to communicate them. And I learn a lot by having an intelligent community out there that is ready to help me out by sharing their knowledge back.
But when you share information people can take it and use it without giving you credit!
Yes they can. And recently I got an email from a person that attended one of my presentations a couple of weeks ago. This person attended another conference with other people speaking the next week. One of them using content that was clearly borrowed from my presentations. And without giving any credit.
So should I stop sharing? Stop sending out PDF files of my presentations? I don’t think so. The value of sharing content is bigger than the problem of someone using your ideas without giving you credit. Such use is of course irritating. And not very polite. For the people in the audience that know where your content comes from you simply look like a jerk if you don’t give credit.
I remember an old interview with the photoshop guru Kai Krause. He was sharing all his knowledge in a series called Kai’s Power Tips. And he was asked why he shared all his knowledge. “You’re giving away your best asset”. He answered that he wasn’t. He was giving away yesterday’s knowledge. He was already working on something new. (And what’s he doing now? Living and working in a 1000 year old castle. With a priceless view and lots of space.)
Kai Krause’s statement is bold, arrogant and full of confidence. And I love it. So for me another important reason to share is the fact that I push myself forward. And that’s why you shouldn’t be afraid of people borrowing your thoughts. They’re borrowing old thoughts. Go ahead, use it. I’m on my way further down the road anyway.
All the laptops I have owned have had some degree of noise on the audio out. Not annoying for regular listening, but when doing presentations the noise can be quite disturbing. It is due to the fact that the conversion from digital to analog audio is done inside the computer. Together with all kinds of electronics that produce noise. After posting an article about a very cheap external volume control and audio switch I had some comments about replacing that one with an external USB based audio card.
The theory is that when doing the conversion from digital to analog outside of the laptop itself you would get rid of some of the noise. So a while ago I received my Creative Xmod. Now I’ve had the possibility to test it at some venues. And it works very well. In some cases I went from horrible noises when connecting the internal audio to no noise and crisp audio when switching to the Creative Xmod.
The Xmod has lots of stupid so called enhancement effects as well. The X-fi crystalizer is supposed to clean up some compression artifacts in MP3 audio and might actually clean up the sound a bit, but the fake 3D effect that you also can add is not my favorite.
Regardless of the effects, my conclusion so far is that this gadget now is nicely placed in my box of essential presentation equipment.
If you have been following this blog for a long time you know that I did an experiment snapping images out of my window for a year. I made a video that was hugely popular and my images have been used in several interesting projects.
At that point I snapped the images with a Sony compact camera. After buying a digital SLR I decided to do the same thing. But this time in better quality and not shooting the images through my window.
I still have a couple of months before the next year of images are captured, but I have enough to do some experiments. Mainly because I want some feedback. This time I’m shooting three exposures each time. Giving me the possibility of putting them together using HDR software.
The following video is a horrible rough cut of the images so far. The black levels are completely off, the HDR effect too strong and the video is way too long for this kind of viewing.
The audio is actual audio captured at the same spot that the images are taken, but not at all synced with the images.
Still, it would be valuable to get some feedback and ideas. That will make it easier for me to make the final video perfect when I have all the images at some point late this summer.
You’ve just returned home after a good day of work. You’re outside your house with two hungry kids and a horrible weather. When you’re about to unlock your door you don’t find your keys. And suddenly you remember where they are.
Safely placed at the back of a computer at work. Always remembering your USB key because it is placed on your key chain = a good idea. Forgetting your keys at work because they are securely fastened to your USB key = bad idea.
It’s in Norwegian, so it might be of limited use for my international readers. For the next couple of months I’m going to do several international presentations, so an English version will be up at some point as well. Read more…
Yes - completely off topic regarding the internet, media centers, marketing and new media. You know, the stuff I usually write about here on eirikso.com. But it has been easter holiday, cold and I’ve had several days off.
First, ensure you’ll have a couple of days with sub zero degrees. Preferably something below -5 degrees Celsius (23 F). Then fill a big bucket with water. Find a smaller bucket and place it in the water in the big one. Find something to put in the small bucket to make it submerge in the water in the big bucket. Don’t use water in the small bucket. Use small stones or something else. I found a part of wood.
The small bucket will float around in the big one, so you might want to tie it up to make it sit still in the middle of the big bucket. You need about 5 cm (2 inches) of water around and under the small bucket.
Now leave the bucket outside for a couple of hours. I needed about two days in -5 to -10 degrees Celsius (23 - 14 F).
When it is completely frozen remove the weight in the inner bucket and fill it with hot water. This will melt some of the ice to make it easy for you to remove the inner bucket.
Depending on the temperature you might need to pour some hot water outside on the big bucket as well. To be able to remove it.
When removed, make some holes along the end. When you place it on top of a candle you need some air to flow into it. When finished, light a small candle and place the block of ice on top of it.
Now wait for the evening to arrive and have fun watching these amazing lanterns.
But the heat from the candle will melt the top of the lantern! Yes, but it will keep looking cool.
This is Eirik Solheim's prize winning experiment. I use this page to share information about media, marketing, technology, photography and stuff I find important. I have been running this page since 2003. And since I started using Statcounter in 2005 more than 1.5 million people have visited my site.
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