Re-Invent the Wheel

Posted on 3 December 2010 by Erik Hare | 12 Comments

Any day that starts with a nearly mandatory trip to the Apple store is not a good day. That’s my gripe for the morning as I find I have to buy another battery charger to replace the one that oh-so-easily snapped off. It’s not really a big deal except that this plug slips out so easily it probably has a lot to do with why Apple batteries don’t last very long. And here I have to buy another badly designed little thing.

“It’s Apple,” you might say, “They do stuff like that.” Well, it’s not just Apple – it’s nearly everything that wants to the latest kewl thing. The level of complexity in our world means that a lot of bits and pieces need to be put together to make things work, but they aren’t always using the best things around them. The wheel is constantly being re-invented. That’s a shame.

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The Promised Land

Posted on 24 November 2010 by Erik Hare | 12 Comments

First came God’s paradise, Eden, which mankind was kicked out of for not following instructions. After that came floods, slavery, fratricide, and a whole lotta smiting. The three great “Religions of the Book” – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – differ as to when and where it happened, but all agree that at some point God became weary of it all. Those who managed to get through it and somehow achieve Righteousness are given the charter to a Promised Land. To a surprising number of faiths that Promised Land is right here in the USofA, and the delivery of the righteous to a land of great wealth is what Thanksgiving is all about.

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Grounding

Posted on 22 November 2010 by Erik Hare | 18 Comments

Life on the ‘net is a new world full of promise to increase the connection between people, create new business opportunities, and develop new ideas. Who can possibly argue with that? I won’t. But as I discuss what this means, online and off, I’ve come to realize that there is often a disconnect between how things are done in real life (IRL) and in this new world that exists in the ether around us.

Bridging that gap is an opportunity to make the online world more relevant – and make a decent living, if I can figure it out. The problem is not an academic one at all. Yet I can’t help but think that the solution can be found in how it is all grounded. For all this new stuff the people who use it are still people. It takes me back to the beginnings of academia itself, or how the Western world came to be what it is.

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What is Community?

Posted on 19 November 2010 by Erik Hare | 30 Comments

Nearly all social media activists agree that success in their field requires a sense of community. It’s the “social”, after all, that distinguishes this kind of media from older media. Yet that means different things to different people, colored by their different experiences in life. What does “community” mean to you?

It’s not just an idle question. As different communities form around the ‘net people will expect different things from them following their different visions. I’d like to know what you think “community” means.

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A Thanksgiving Story

Posted on 12 November 2010 by Erik Hare | 9 Comments

It naturally comes up in my family just before Thanksgiving every year. The Puritans’ deliverance to America is billed as a search for religious freedom, something which is a core value of our nation. It’s good that we celebrate such a thing, but do the Puritans really deserve credit for it? The short answer is no, they do not, because they were seeking to establish their own theocracy – and across the ocean where no one would bother them seemed like the perfect place.

Religious tolerance as a founding principle of America came from a different source – William Penn, the “absolute proprietor” of Pennsylvania. The reason that he doesn’t get the credit he deserves is murky at best, but may have its origins in a prejudice that most of us wouldn’t even understand today. I think it’s time to correct that.

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