Monday Inspiration: A Moment of Quiet

So often we look to sources of inspiration and motivation to get us fired up and rocketing forward. But what about those things that keep that fire burning? What about stopping for a minute, letting the engine cool down, and taking a deep breath?

Meditation can take many forms from a walk in the park to breathing and silence to praying to full-body chakra alignment, and is completely subjective and particular to every individual. It can be a spiritual moment or a purely physical calming. And anecdotal benefits range from increasing productivity and brain power to having a higher sense of fulfillment during the remaining part of your day.

There are as many motivations as there are methods when it comes to meditation, so let's review one simple method:

1. Get comfortable. You can do this in an office chair, sitting on a couch, the floor, or even lying down. (NOTE: I suggest not becoming too comfortable, especially if you're prone to nodding off.)
2. Close your eyes.
3. Establish a deep breathing pattern. You can try a 5-7 second inhale, hold it for a second, slowly release, but make it yours and only do what is comfortable.
4. Clear your mind. No, this is not as easy as it sounds, but don't waste focus and get frustrated when thoughts enter your mind; simply acknowledge them and let them move on.
5. Continue for 5-15 minutes or as you see fit.

And there you have it: a basic meditation that - done once or twice during the day - can just flush your head of clutter, give your processing centers a break, and allow you to re-engage your work with renewed vigor.

Let me know if you have any specific methods or ideas for taking that few minutes of calm and how they work for you. And have a great day!

Friday Internet Video: Wedding Proposals and G4

I must apologize that I missed you all yesterday. While I did not post on tech fun yesterday, I did spend about an hour with Daniel Johnson, Jr. and Don Sceifers discussing the upcoming New Media Cincinnati Second Saturday. The theme is Colleagues or Competitors and we talked about the WHY behind New Media Cincinnati's attendance and the spectrum between trolling for clients and showing up to offer your knowledge up for the betterment of the group. September's meeting will be an interesting one and I can't wait to hear insights from all the attendees.

But do not fret about yesterday's missing post; you can expect some gravy tomorrow as I've got a backlog of bookmarks, stories that need some commenting. I've also got to update everyone on my Palm Pre love and the wonder of homebrew and the announcement of a new project I'm beginning. Stay tuned!

But on to the Friday videos! We start today with a video from Mashable and the Social Good conference from NYC. The video is 2 hours long and very good, but if you click to forward it to the last few minutes (1:58:00 or so), you get to see a marriage proposal. Tasty.



No, he did not utter the words "will you marry me," but I speak from experience when I say that proposing to someone in front of a couple hundred people makes reality turn into jell-o and supposed plans are left to a higher universal order. I applaud him.


And since I always enjoy Attack of the Show on G4 and their Around the Net segment and Kevin and Olivia are on vacation this week, let's take their most recent bit and enjoy a bevvy of internet lovin'.

Video Games - E3 2009 - Attack of the Show

Wink pants: Do Not Want.

Wednesday Twitter Headlines: Golden Ratio?, Ted Kennedy, No Teen Twitter for Privacy?

Twitter's Golden Ratio

The Washington Post has an article called Twitter's Golden Ratio in which they begin:

If you're new to Twitter, life is easy. A notification comes in that someone is following you, and you probably follow them back. After all, you're going to want some tweets in your stream. After a couple dozen of those, you may start using more discretion, looking over the person's profile and their most recent tweets. But that gets old quickly as well, and inevitably you turn to using the secret ratio that nearly everyone knows (whether they realize it or not) to determine who is worth following back: "Followers" versus "following".

It's cute and endearing from the point of someone who actually manages their follower list. They may have nailed one item or two, but if you've read my post on 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You Back on Twitter, it's a moot point.

There are at least 10 (and probably 20-30) reasons why any one person will not follow another on Twitter if they are deliberately trying to increase the value of what they see daily on their stream. And a golden ratio is not a be-all, end-all of any sort.

It is nice to see the mainstream media taking notice - and a shot at understanding - for those of us in it every day.


Ted Kennedy

Whatever your politics, we lost an amazing statesman early this morning. Check out this article to see some of the comments.

Sorry, but they're also novices and apparently no one thought to use a hashtag.

R.I.P. Ted Kennedy. You will be missed.


Teens Shunning Twitter

This article from PC World talks about how teens would rather text than tweet. That can make sense. Until you see this bit:

So why aren’t the kids down with Twitter? Perhaps because they don’t want the authority figures in their lives — parents, teachers, and other downers — knowing what they’re up to. Texting, by comparison, is an inherently private conversation between friends. It’s the wireless equivalent of passing notes.

First problem: no one's been "down" with much since '03.

Second problem: Accepting the "they don't want authority figures in their lives" argument completely side-steps any of these so-called "private" teens' complete embracing of Facebook.

Facebook updates and comments are an enormous, thorough view of what those teens are doing. No Twitter? So? They're pushing more of their lives via updates and comments and photos and tagging photos via Facebook with less effort and software or interfaces than they'd be able to with Twitter.

To say they're eschewing Twitter because they're into privacy is a fanciful, ignorant romp into social media. NYT may not know better, but I'd expect PC World to have a better finger on the pulse of what the hell's going on in social media.


You turn! What do you think about these stories? Does the Washington Post have a finger on the pulse of Twitter behavior? Is Tweeting TK's death okay? Does the NYT or PC World have any idea about what's going on in social media?

As always, comments appreciated.

Wednesday's Tuesday's Social Media Post ...on Time Management

Last week I got a great response from an overview of Cincinnati's social networking events, and one of the comments that came back was:

And people say it's hard to network in Cincinnati! I actually have heard that several times per month. I can't get to everything I want to do because, well, sometimes I actually do have to do work. :)

And I chuckled out loud and gave Lappy (my laptop) a little fist bump. And then I looked at my calendar for this week and it made my face scrunch up in a way that made me quite happy that Lappy's built-in webcam was not broadcasting me live.

Right now, on Wednesday evening, I have had 8 different appointments (a couple fam-related that don't even appear on the calendar) that while both necessary and rewarding have nothing to do with me actually working on current projects.

And while the magic that is striking that balance will be a future writing (doesn't do me much good to say "FAIL - but, um, here's how I would do it..."), this post has a different crux, point, and/or apex.

You may have read the originating post about the EJM Designs Blog schedule and shouted "Rah!" and looked forward to what was coming and yesterday mumbled "WTF?"

And I'm here to say "Yes, a blogging schedule works! It does!" But it does not do so without a daily schedule. I may have a great idea already set up for me when I get to blogging, but if I don't have a time every day set aside to address that issue, then I may as well be posting Wednesday evening about my Tuesday topic and thinking about the forthcoming Wednesday post as well.

Lesson: If you're serious about doing something every day, you need to set aside time to do that thing every day. Period. No excuses.

(And it doesn't hurt to nail down a rough schedule of other important daily items like exercise or meditation.)

So today(yesterday)'s response question is: what is your daily event? Your daily chore? Your daily necessity? How do you do it and are you successful?

Monday's Inspiration: What You Use It For

A yellowed, frayed piece of paper has hung from our fridge for years. It is my wife's and she had it for years before she met me. She reads it every morning. Sometimes I forget it's there. Here it what it says:

This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind. Let it be something good.

I can't say there's much disagreeing with that sentiment. We have to realize every day that that there is great work to be done in one way or another. And we have no room to complain if we have not done our absolute best. So today, just today, do that; be the best - in interpersonal interactions, in business, online. I think you'll find it's addictive.

Have a great day!

Friday Internet Videos: Cameron's Avatar, Fatal Farm, and Fred

Time for another round of online videos that you may or may not have caught this week.
Enjoy!

James Cameron's Avatar

Many, many people have been awaiting a glimpse of this trailer from famed Titanic (or if you're like me: Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss) director James Cameron. And here it is:



I loved this movie when it was called The Emperor's New Groove.

What? Everyone already got their snark in. That's mine; the avatars kinda look like when the king turned into a llama.

Seriously, though, I'm thrilled by what I saw. I'm a huge fan of quality science fiction fantasy and a guilty pleasure fan of movies for CG sake, so I can't lose either way. Solid prediction: the video game will probably suck.


Fatal Farm Leftovers

Fatal Farm had some leftovers from the MTV Movie awards, some wonderful parodies. If you cannot laugh at this, ...you must've had an amazing week.




FRED

I'm going to go ahead and warn you: this was a suggestion from my daughter, thought I've seen quite a few of Fred's videos. Fred has risen from relative obscurity on YouTube to an internet and is now real-life star of sorts (he sells clothes at Justice and had a cameo on iCarly). Worth the watch to shake up your reality and keep in touch with a younger generation. Oh, and it's hilarious.

Tech Fetish Thursday: Wordy Clock, Skinny-Mini PS3

QLOCKTWO



The QLOCKTWO caught my eye immediately, probably because I have a deep thing for timekeeping devices that rivals only my fascination with cartography. But this clock, created by German company Biergert & Funk is unique in that it eschews those concise, simple numbers and goes for the linguistic version of time.

It also goes for the expensive version of price at about $1600. Many colors. Collect them all!


The Skinny PS3



This skinny-mini version of the 120GB PS3 came with a $299 pricetag this week. Not a huge surprise since Sony did this to the PS2 back when.

PS3's still come with some pretty high-end Blu-ray action ...and are still not compatible with my library of PS2 games. For now I'll stick with my PS2, Wii, and 360, though I'll probably be waiting a while if I hold out for an Atari-esque drop in price ("The fun is back, oh yessiree!"):