passion + inspiration =innovationby eric marden { xentek.net }

passionprimary (or primal) ingredient

what are my passions?

music

art

culture

technology

what are your passions?

discover

embrace

cultivate

extend

if you don’t have a passionyou don’t have a pulse

your passion will giveyou purpose

surround yourself with people that share your passion

your job shouldn’t pick your friends, your passions should

BILL MOYERS: Do you ever have the sense of... being helped by hidden hands?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

Joseph Campbell once said:

inspirationfuel for your fire

there are no new ideasonly new iterations

the conversation. evolvedan incomplete history of the internet

In the beginning...

... was the BBS.

Users dialed up a server and left messages for each other.

That gave way to...

... the Forum.

Innovated by CompuServe as a way to ‘centralize’ the BBS system.

Still required ‘permission’ and special ‘access’.

Which became...

... the Message Board.

Internet Version of the Forum.

Access is (mostly) open to the internet at large.

Still an asynchronous communication model

Then the ‘me’ gene kicked in...

...And the Weblog was born.

Satisfied both a publishing problem and a need to communicate.

Comments were soon added, which created a ‘one person’ message board, of sorts.

And then ‘Web 2.0’ arrived...

RSS turned updates on its head.

MySpace bastardized the blog and the private message.

Twitter micro-sized the blog post.

Pownce improved it and made it a group activity.

And 1000s of other iterations...

there are no new ideasonly new iterations

innovation the spark of genius

So what became of the conversation?

Message Boards and Blogs evolved in separate spaces, serving different needs.

Social networking turned the internet on its head.

Then someone decided to marry the two...

The Blog Forum or ‘Flog’

Drawing on obvious prior art, the Blog Forum was born by creating a new system to house the conversation.

So let’s see some examples

Icon Buffet Free Deliveryicon trading social network

icon buffet: features

Lightweight Profile

Folksonomy Invites Social Connections

‘Game’-Like System keeps you motivated

icon buffet: features

And the Blog Forum...

Posts are made and shown from the profile page

Comments appear here too

icon buffet: blog forum

All posts are organized under a couple of different topics.

Users can find the post in the Blog Forum or on the Profile

Turns blogs into a community experience

asoboointernational creative community

asoboo: features

Lightweight Profile

Allows your Flickr, RSS, and other Feeds to be plugged in for parsing on your profile

Has a blog forum, but...

asoboo: blog forum

asoboo turns the Blog Forum concept inside out

Everything is a comment - groups, blogs, etc.

Every comment is shown on the Profile

The post (comment) is the base unit of measurement of the conversationIt’s not where you say it - It’s what you have to say.

Where to go from here?Some things to think about

What concepts can you extend?And how does it dovetail with your passions

Scratch your own itchAnd success is possible.

Do anything else, and it’s a Job.

Fire your BossAnd go start something

What would life be like if we had no courage to attempt anything?Vincent Van Gogh

Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.Mark Twain

Links

http://www.iconbuffet.com/people/xentek

http://www.asoboo.com/

http://xentek.net/