Whisperings from Whispered Pearls

Michael Jackson is dead.

Long live the Thriller.That’s not what this story is about, however. The more interesting thing is how this story, like so many these days, unfolded. I simultaneously heard about it on Twitter and heard Chuck P. on Internet radio station Indie 103.1 mention that he was reading it also.

Now let me say this about that. In the entire time that I’ve been on Twitter, I’ve seen many stories broken: earthquakes, the plane in the Hudson, the unrest in Iran. All reported on Twitter long before any traditional news outlets get ahold of them.

Having worked in newspapers, I understand this. The traditional pattern for a news organization is that you hear a rumor. You go check it out. You get at least two separate sources to confirm the news/rumor. Then you go with it. Not before.

However, let me just suggest that news organizations need to rethink this a bit. Not that they should run with unconfirmed reports, but let me go further into this Michael Jackson is dead story.

After reading it in multiple places on Twitter, including reports which said “I’ve talked to his tour promoters. They confirm the death.” (which was good enough for me to believe it), the mainstream media (MSM) insisted on walking through their paces, dragging out what we on Twitter already knew.

Luckily, we had TMZ, who had initially broken the story, confirming it. Then the LA Times confirmed that he was in a coma, and then confirmed his death.

We end up with the bizarre reality of CNN “kinda” reporting his death. “The LA Times has confirmed, but CNN has not…” WTF?

CBS News confirms. Then ABC News confirms. Still CNN holds out. What are they waiting for? By this time, there are friends of the family, UCLA staff, city staff, all of whom are quoted on Twitter as having confirmed it. It really made CNN look laughable.

Sure, I understand. It’s a big story. You don’t wanna get it wrong.

But here’s my other truth, as I told a friend of mine who was skeptical just hearing it from Twitter. There has not been ONE single thing that I’ve heard first on Twitter as fact, that didn’t turn out to be so. Twitter is not a place for rumor-mongering, that I’ve seen. It is a network of people able to get news in ways that other people not right next to his hospital bed cannot. And should be respected as such.

In response to this blog post:

http://blog.teamnimbuswest.com/2008/11/why-social-networking-locally-and-digitally-can-be-a-bad-idea/

I have this to say:

Boy, do I disagree with this premise.

First of all, perhaps 148.7 is the maximum number of relationships someone could have in 1998, according to some anthropologist (and even that I disagree with). But a lot has changed in the interim 11 years.

Things just don’t work the way they did in 1998. We are an accelerated culture. Things are moving faster, our communication methods move faster, we get and lose friends (and social contacts) faster.

Perhaps you could argue that those few friends whom you could sit around the coffee table with, pouring out your soul are few and far between (as you do state later in the article), but I really don’t agree with that either.

The nature of our interaction has changed with this new technology too.

The model, as you state the case, used to be that we’d be uptight and bottled in around our business colleagues and the public at large, only “letting our hair down” with a “few people.” It isn’t that way anymore and I certainly don’t operate that way.

I have become my brand, and those who know my brand know me. I’m a podcaster and an author, I blog frequently and am active in nearly every social network. And anyone who knows me in any of those places knows me, complete and unvarnished. There isn’t anything I hide from anyone.

Anyone in the blogosphere who cares to knows everything about me, from the fact that coffee ice cream is my favorite to the fact that I was sad about losing my job recently as newspapers dissolve.

I have a large listening audience (which I’m contractually obligated not to disclose), 17,000+ friends on MySpace, 1,100+ friends on Facebook, 2,900+ following on Twitter. Which of those would I be sitting down to have coffee with? Well, any of them that ask. Who am I going to glean information from? Build business relationships with? Advance strategic partnerships with? All of them.

Instead of parceling out morsels of information to my close associates, I can now share what I know with anyone who needs to know, and they share theirs with me. Who knows what types of questions I will ask my audience on Twitter? or they ask of me?

It’s become an ebb and flow of constant information, and constant relationships. I expect and hope that these people trust me, as I trust them, because that’s how it works now. I am honest and open and real with everyone in the blogosphere, to the best of my ability.

My connections are WIDE AND DEEP. And no, having 73,000 followers on Twitter isn’t meaningless. It increases the chances that whatever I ask will get answered by someone. That’s huge. It also says to me that those people think that what I have to say has some value. That’s important to me, whether it’s 73,000 or 7 who are really listening.

But, as much as I do consider myself to be a brand, who hopefully one day will make money by my presence and my insight, I sure don’t look at those 73,000 followers as people who can help me “make more money in less time.” For heaven’s sake.

And, frankly, someone like you who was just talking to me because he was looking for a business opportunity “to make more money in less time” would be someone I bounce immediately from my Twitter connections list. Cause that person just doesn’t get it.

In reference to this article:
http://www.davidhenderson.com/2009/02/28/should-traditional-media-fear-its-social-sibling/
I have this to say.

Listening to some of the voices online at the minute, it’d certainly seem that way. Yet history doesn’t bear these opinions out.
TV would kill radio.
DVD’s would kill movie ticket sales.
CD’s would kill vinyl.
The Internet would kill traditional media.
Music downloads would kill traditional retailers.

Maybe I’m looking at the wrong picture, but I still see all of the things that are meant to be dead by now. If anything, many of the doomed mediums are thriving and actually performing better than their replacements.Obviously, he isn’t seeing what I’m seeing here. Way back in the day, people used to sit around their radios and watch them. TV came along, with all its fancy pictures, that sure ended. Sure, people continued to listen to radio, but it was in a very different way than it was previously. The dominant media force became the TV.

As far as music, the only people listening to and enjoying vinyl records are the diehard collectors, who probably even have a few 78s in their collection. For that matter, CDs aren’t as prevalent with the youth of today as digital music. In case you haven’t noticed, buying online, listening on your iPod or computer, has replaced what was previously.

And last I checked, Tower Records has gone out of business. You can argue that there still are record stores around, but it’s all a question of time and priorities. The fact of the matter is that 20 years from now, everyone will be buying their music digitally, and not even think about what they have lost by not having vinyl around or brick-and-mortar record stores, for that matter.

Until recently, DVDs pretty much had put a serious dent in traditional movie ticket sales. Why go to a theatre, when you can sit at home with your friends and watch on your big screen TV, with the surround sound? People are going back now, interestingly, because of the recession, it is posited. But moviegoing has become less of a “we must do this in a theatre” proposition, and more of a “let’s get together with our friends at the theatre tonight” kind of deal.

What is succeeding in theatres is what cannot be done at home: big explosion type movies, great special effects, 3D things. Moviegoing has become quite a different thing than it was even ten years ago.

So, really, the only one left in that list is “The Internet will kill traditional media.”

Look around, my brother. For my money, newspapers are dead and dying daily. People get their news, their sports scores, their entertainment coverage, their crossword puzzles, their classified ads–everything they went to newspapers for, they now get online.

People who work at traditional media can piss and moan about how they wish this wasn’t so, and how it just “couldn’t happen.” It’s already happening. There was a story yesterday about how Hearst wants to “save newspapers” with a Kindle-like device on which people could read their daily paper. Are they kidding? Newsflash to Hearst: I already have such a device. It’s called an iPhone.

The only newspaper which seems to really embrace the changes and be adapting to it (the New York Times) is there, in an iPhone app, and I happily read it there.

Furthermore, the other item that traditional media–radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, I’m talking to ALL of you–seems to be blissfully ignoring is that people are CONSUMING information quite differently than they used to. Traditional media is busy arguing whether or not newspapers are dead, while people seek their information through Facebook and Twitter and whatever news aggregator sites they prefer. I like Digg. Radio is arguing about whether or not terrestrial radio is more viable than satellite while we are seeking out music through online stations and our iPods. TV is scratching its head about why viewership seems to be down everywhere, and doesn’t seem to notice how popular Netflix is, how many of their TV shows are being watched and sought out online.

It’s happening, people. Keep your head in the sand as long as you want to, it’s already changing all around you. And for us, the consumer, this is a good thing. Podcasts give us a breath of fresh air, where people speak truth and are free to swear if they want to. Why wouldn’t we seek that out instead?

If traditional media wants to save any vestiges of what it’s got left, it needs to quit bellyaching about whether or not it’s dying, and figure out some way to get those journalists and those radio DJs and those TV anchors onto the web, and find a viable way to pay them to do what they do so well, but do it THERE.

It’s not that we don’t want it anymore, we just want it in this new format in our time-shifted patterns, and wish to hell they’d quit staring at their vinyl records, and figure it out already.

I realized today why I am a true Los Angeleno now.

I exist at the moment, in the greatest depression since my father died 30 years ago (certainly thus far the worst year of my life).

Heck, so far all that’s happened this year was a job loss, an industry that I worked for disintegrating, a radio station that I adored going online only, the bottom dropping out of the financial markets, and the man I love choosing someone else. It can only go up from here!But that last statement is what made me really realize that I truly belong here, here in Los Angeles.

This is a strange city. One that, blissfully, the rest of the country doesn’t really seem to understand, and probably wishes would just drop off into the ocean already. So let me explain.

People come here, with their dreams bundled on their sleeves, believing in their deepest hearts that they write better screenplays, or are better actors, or know the movie business better than anyone else. They probably come here, with stars in their eyes, or at least (as I did) with big dollar signs in them. Foolishly believing that this city was gonna be the path to riches. In reality, I have been broker here than I ever have been in my life.Here’s what I have found in story after countless story of this brutal town. You get two years. You come here, naive and full of hope and optimism. The city quickly shows you that things aren’t going to be handed to you on a silver platter. EVEN IF you are the best actor, writer, dancer, musician or cinematographer this town has ever seen.You get two years to tough it out. Many leave in the first six months, slinking back home with their tail between their legs. Many more struggle with not enough to eat, chasing that dream that brought them here. And if you can tough it out for two years, I think you’ll probably be here to stay.

The magical formula to succeed in this town is one that rears its head whenever times are toughest, like now. You have to BELIEVE at your deepest core, that whatever things look like now, it’s gonna turn around for you. Something’s gonna happen. Some combination of circumstances, some chance meeting, some accident of preparedness meets luck is going to fall into your lap and voila, you are back on top. That is, after all, how this town really works.

You have to believe in yourself with a fierceness that would make others quake. You have to keep plugging away when, in any other city, it would seem like every single door is closed to you. When you have absolutely no reasonable hope left, you have to pull more hope from your inner reserves. Although the flip side of this is that the town is then also filled with people who are never going to succeed at screenwriting or acting or directing like they think they are, but they plug away anyway.

What one discovers as one walks this perilous path is that if you truly love something, it’s something you HAVE to do, no matter the odds, no matter what anyone else tells you, no matter how people like you (as old as you, as heavy as you, as weird as you, as whatever as you) never can succeed at this. Case in point: who would’ve thought a few years ago that Mickey Rourke would be an Oscar-nominee?

And that is it. That is what drives me. This almost pathological impulse to continue when everything in the world tells me not to. To believe deeply that things will turn around. That those closed doors will open up, that that guy’s heart may turn around one day, and even if I try and try and try and nothing happens, it’s all about the journey, anyway, right?

That, my friends, is the essence of succeeding in Los Angeles. I am truly home.

The brickbats are flying fast and furious about the death of newspapers.

Having been a recent victim of a newspaper’s layoffs, I have a few things of my own to say about all this. I also consider myself to be deeply ensconced in new media, and have a few things to say about that, too. 

I wanted to comment on an article that I have posted on my Facebook, link here: http://www.maxgladwell.com/2008/12/media-landscape-newspapers/ 

Max Gladwell, who already doesn’t understand social media enough to have a comments section attached to his dissertation (sigh), makes a case about the death of newspapers. What he posits is that newspapers shouldn’t die because they are still the Fourth Estate, the ones responsible for holding the government’s feet to the fire. To which I say: where has this Fourth Estate been in the last eight years then? Where are the angry epithets about all of the war crimes committed by the current men in power? As our habeus corpus was taken away, where was the outrage of that Fourth Estate? Did it reach to anyone other than the few journalists who knew what it meant? Torture? At Guantanamo and elsewhere? Where was the commentary about that? Global warming, and the corporations that condone it? And on and on.

To those ends, I say, the newpapers’ power to effect change has already transferred hands, in case Mr. Gladwell’s not noticed it. The news that affects people, gets into their system, makes them take political action, is already happening more on Facebook, MySpace and blogs than from reading any newspaper. WE the PEOPLE have become the Fourth Estate. We talk about things that are wrong with our government, and do something about it, as Obama’s largely Internet-fueled election proved. The newspapers, also in case you haven’t noticed, are firmly in the pockets of the land barons, the rich profiteers, the corporations who are carrying out the very things we need to be railing against.  We, we who still care about our country, are out here, carrying messages hand to hand, if necessary (well, ok, maybe with the little help of an iPhone) to tell others the truth.

We blog it, we podcast it, we status it on FB, we tweet it on Twitter. The thirst for real news will never die. But the place we look for it has already changed. And I would have told Mr. Gladwell that, if only he was new media-savvy enough to have a comments section.

Once again, I am inspired by Rox, from Beachwalks with Rox.

She was talking in Beachwalks 551 about “the freedom to give,” specifically mentioning her yoga class and how she ended up giving more when she could give whatever she wanted, as opposed to a set fee.

I think the band Radiohead learned this too, when they offered their album online for whatever people thought it was worth. They ended up having quite a few downloads (with people giving various amounts), but the fascinating thing is that once the physical album was available, it didn’t suffer in its sales at all.

The most important thing about these experiments, I think, is not the dollar amounts given or not given, rather it’s the change in thinking that is propelled here, that needs to be encouraged. Give me what you can afford. Give me what you think I’m worth.

I know that when I’m in a restaurant that forces a 20% tip onto the bill, they get not a penny extra from me. But if it’s variable, I tend to be a good tipper as a rule.

I can see the whole Internet economy (certainly as regards podcasting) going this way. If you like my show, drop a few dollars in the PayPal box. Or pick something off my Amazon wish list and send it to me. And if you’re broke, and can’t afford it, that’s ok too. You can still enjoy the show too.

It somehow puts the whole package into the heart mode, instead of the capitalist pocketbook mode. It is an exchange of good faith. I give you my good faith. Most people will respond with good faith in return. And really, isn’t the whole thing Radiohead was saying was: let’s get it BACK to touching your heart, instead of being money-grubbing pigs here?

I don’t know how Radiohead feels about it, but what encouraged me most reading that story and listening to this show that Rox did, was that. Let’s deal in the commerce of the heart more. Let’s get it back to the square that it needs to be in. A love-based, faith-based economy, instead of the fear, when am I gonna get mine?, place that it’s been in for too long.

All of that being said, right after I finish this, I’m going to explore how to put a PayPal button on this site, cause right now, I do my podcasts for absolutely no money. But I have faith it’s all going to work out, anyway.

First, let me explain.

For those out there who aren’t currently on Twitter, don’t use it, don’t know what it does, what purpose it serves, let me explain that I can hardly imagine a life without Twitter. You add people that seem interesting. They add you if you seem interesting. Social etiquette of Twitter has decreed that if someone follows you, you follow them back. To do otherwise has been deemed rude. 

Out of all the social networks, Twitter was one of the ones I couldn’t imagine living without. In short, it is like a real-world IM service WITH the entire world. Kinda like AOL used to be way back in the early days of the Internet. Where you could tell where the sun was setting and rising by who was logging on. There’s England, now the East Coast, now the Midwest people, now the Californians, etc. Its biggest advantage so far, other than keeping those in your network intimately connected to you, is that you hear REAL time news in real time. The last California earthquake was Twittered, and beat AP’s reporting of it by 20 minutes. That, probably, is the reason I’ll continue to stay on it, cause no one else offers that. 

But, and this is a note to budding social networking gurus out there: when you come up with your great next social network, prepare for growth. Structure it into your business plan. And whatever you foresee for growth, multiply that by ten, and do that. Twitter stumbled badly lately when their servers choked from unexpected exponential growth. They also had a problem with bots creeping in and destroying business. Their answer for all of this was to limit the amount of followers a person could have. However, they didn’t tell anyone this. All of a sudden, you just couldn’t add anyone anymore. The first problem (other than being non-communicative, and what the hell is that for a social network? built on people TALKING to each other?) is that finding anyone to communicate your problem to is next to impossible. Hearing back from anyone is absolutely impossible. I’ve even Twittered directly to both of Twitter’s founders, and have heard NOTHING to this date. 

The second problem is that the whole thing is completely arbitrary. While it’s clear to absolutely everyone who uses Twitter that you are required to speak in bites of 140 characters, it is completely unclear exactly how many followers you can have. Or how many you can follow. At this moment, for example, I’d really like to add my sister, who arrived at Twitter after me. According to what they are telling me, I have to delete followers to add more. But how many? I had 3,106 people that I was following when all this transpired. (1,770 are following me.) Do I need to drop 6? 60? 600? Nowhere is this stated. Many have said to me, why do you need 3000 followers anyway? Why do I need 15,000 friends on MySpace? Why do there need to be limits? How many people are in the world? If I want the ability to talk to all of them, shouldn’t I have that ability? Sure, maybe many will only use Twitter to talk to friends and family, but I have a wide social media circle. The depth and beauty of Twitter is in the variety of people you are talking to, in my estimation. 

I have many more thousands who listen regularly to my podcast. What if every one of them wanted to read my Tweets? They probably couldn’t. It would probably max out Twitter’s system. I communicate with many people. People from all areas of the various social networks I belong to. People from many places all over the world. People I know intimately, and people I just met. Rather like life. Why limit that? Twitter saying, well, it’s set up so that you talk in 140 characters, you should be used to restraint, doesn’t really wash when you are talking about growing your business.

The ideal for any social network is to have as many people talking as possible, isn’t it? To say nothing of all the people IN my social network whom I promote (or promoted) Twitter to, on a daily basis. It’s frustrating, it’s counter-productive, and it’s causing me to use and promote Twitter less. I hope you’re happy, Twitter founders. And I’m going to keep writing and blogging about my dissatisfaction as long as these problems go on. That’s how social networks actually work. Who knows? Maybe someone out there will realize what Twitter’s doing wrong and be able to build the next Twitter. You let me follow as many people as I want, I’ll jump over there in a heartbeat. 

blech

Was just watching an old episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Beach Walks with Rox. (Actually, I don’t know how relevant the concept of “old” and “new” really is anymore, since the temporal way that people watch TV and podcasts and every piece of media we take in has changed so much. We get to it when we get to it… But I digress…) 

Beach Walks (www.beachwalks.tv), as you may or may not know, is a podcast filmed in Hawaii. The amazing host, Roxanne, aka Rox, gives us insight or inspiration or just thoughts as she goes through her day (kind of like what we do on Whispered Pearls). But she’s walking along the beaches of Hawaii. A must-watch, btw. 

She also gives various Hawaiian words to us to learn and embrace. For me, a linguist, it has been very interesting. It makes me sad that the Hawaiian language is dying out so much, because Hawaiians seem to embrace language in quite a different way than any I’ve been exposed to. The words quite often come more from spiritual principles, and descriptions of feelings, than the more concrete things that Germanic languages derive from.

Well, at least part of this derives from the fact that Germanic languages come from places dealing with snow and ice, and Hawaii is beaches and sunshine. It does provide people with a different mindset (having lived in both types of places). 

Which brings me to the word she talked about today (well, in the episode I watched today): mahalo. Silly me. I thought I was all over the word mahalo. I knew, roughly, that it meant thank you. I also knew that Jason Calcanis (one of my favorite web stars) had designed a cool site around it (www.mahalo.com), and from that arose Mahalo Daily, another cool podcast. I’m all over mahalo.

Then Rox explained it.

Mahalo, you see, is not only thank you. In fact, it actually is more the word for gratitude. And, as Rox described it, it’s “gratitude mixed with respect.” A typical Hawaiian word. Coming from the spiritual.

And it is now that I can truly embrace mahalo. When I’ve heard people rally around mahalo, I just didn’t get it. Mahalo, I realize now, describes my life, the way I’m trying to live every day. Gratitude, mixed with respect. It is the way I approach people. It is contained in every interaction of every day. Mahalo is one of the best words I have ever heard, in fact, streamlining, as it does such essential stuff, big stuff, into one useful word.

And now that I think of it, I can’t even think of a Germanic equivalent of mahalo. Germans being all stiff and cold, and Hawaiians being all embracing and giving from the heart. (Not to stereotype…but there is some truth in this, again related, I believe to the weather of the areas.)

Fascinating stuff. Thanks again, Rox. Even though I’m so behind with your podcasts, you enlighten me every time I listen.

Sincerely: mahalo. –Michelle     

Sometimes I think I know the answer to that. At any rate, I have a bit more of a clue than WP listeners do, so here’s a shot at an answer for the sake of those interested. I’ve known Susi for about eight years now and it’s as if we have traversed eight light years of experience with each other. The initial “location” where our relationship evolved was in deep dark Swabia (although it isn’t dark anymore, in fact, some summers spent swimming in native lakes were very sparkling indeed!). This was due to the fact that I would drive there on a regular basis to teach. And Susi listened. But, as is always the case with being a teacher, at some point, when you least expect it, your students will begin to teach you. A humbling and lovely moment. Subsequently, Susi flitt off in all directions: Hong Kong, here, there, everywhere, Namibia … for a variety of reasons. There’s a time in your lifetime, often when you’re young, where you flaunt your talents in the hopes that they’ll be directed to the right avenue (though this does happen more than once in a lifetime, I am finding…). For whatever reason, nowadays you don’t just become a baker or candlestick-maker and stay that way for the rest of your lifetime. Or very few people have that … “privilege” … Most of us wander through worlds of activity, most of us looking to have these activities bring us some standard of living, whatever standard that may be. Some of us do things just because we simply MUST do them or we’ll burst into flames by virtue of the pressure of not letting the power loose that flows through us.The thing is, that power changes. Moves. Recharges. Or simply dies out – perhaps replaced by another. In the interim between stages, Susi gave us, gave me, quite a charge of her power. Her sexual energy should be bottled and sold, I swear. But more importantly for her, it needed to be channeled into a direction that was good for her. Enter: the magic man. Literally, Susi’s heart, body and soul was swept away by a man. Don’t think it’s all pink fluffy clouds from there, we girls are long over that dream. But the challenge a relationship presents is part of what it’s all about. And there are, as difficult as this may be to accept (especially for people in my profession!), only 24 hours in a day. Relationships take time, sex takes time, everything leading up to (and sometimes progressing from) sex takes time …  I am happy to report that our dear Susi is tucked away comfortably, back in Swabia, near her birthplace, near the place we met, near the place where… as the twists of fate will have it, the WP sisters’ family history evolved. Setting up a household and a life with the man that’s taking all of that power and energy for his lil’ ol’ self and, indirectly but firmly, away from WP listeners. That may seem to be a loss, but in truth, for me, that’s (one of) the point(s) we hope to lead listeners to: find LOVE, LIVE love and follow the winds that blow around and touch your heart. Go with them, bloom with the lessons they bring. I assure you, she is doing just that.