I was cleaning up my disk and found a small .rtf file from March 2009 labeled “Anon”.  In it I found these words:

“We think anonymity exists, but really, except in rare cases, we leave markers to our personality and traits wherever we go.  We can only hide angles not our entire selves.”

Is this true, or can we become invisible in certain places while still speaking our mind.  (And if we are speaking our mind is there a piece of one’s mind that is not a reflection of self?”

A few weeks ago my digital watch went kaput.  It’s a waterproof watch because I put my hands in water on a regular basis, and replacing the battery on those is a pain, because it usually breaks the waterproofness, and most places won’t replace it for you….because they can’t get the seal right either.

At that point I decided I would try again to switch to the more au currant style of just using one of my digital devices to tell me the time. I have an iPod and a Droid on me at most times, so I’m not actually far from a time device very often.  However, all of these do not have the immediacy of tilting my wrist to see the time.

For the first few days I found myself looking and fumbling, feeling almost a panic, as remembered I needed to find a device and turn it on to see the time.  On Shabbat I actually had to go to where a clock was to see it, since I can’t fiddle with my electronic devices to turn them on to show the time.  It was all a bit disorienting.  But now, a couple weeks in, I’ll think I wonder what time it is, turn on a device, and idlely bring up some application without looking at the time.  The “need to know the time” was more of a habit than a real need.  Knowing the time regularly never made me more on time for scheduled events – that seems to be governed by some other factor.  I either have ontimeness or not.

Today, when I once again wondered what time it was, and then found myself playing pocket frogs instead of seeing the time I thought that I should really make a Now watch, and I was reminded  of a story my uncle told me.

So what’s a now watch.  Back in the 70′s my uncle in SF used to make Now watches.  He’d flatten a bottle cap, attach it to a woven wrist band, decorate a round sticker with pen decorated NOW, and stick it on the bottle cap.  He’d give these out to friends.  His now watch however was made from an old wrist watch that had died, so it looked like a real watch but if you looked at the “dial” you’d see it was a sticker with NOW in fabulous colors.

Anyway, one day he was wandering out and about, perhaps near the financial district, and this older man in a suit, looking very professional and serious came up to him and said “Young man, what time is it.”  He did what he always did when someone asked, and looked at his watch and answered “now”.  The man nodded his head curtly and said “I thought it was.”  and continued on his way.

I think by this point the idea of “social networking” and “games” being two separate worlds has melted away with the popularity of casual games on Facebook.  Very few people who use social networking sites have not heard of Farmville or Zynga, even if they don’t play the games themselves.  We also have been seeing the gamification of sites (adding game elements to a site) – with social tie in, often with facebook tie in,  to try and increase engagement in sites that might otherwise get only brief visits.

However, the other side of gamification is the socialization (or is socialification?) of games.  This is where games start using social network tools sites to help promote themselves.  Like gamification socialification can be done well or poorly.  I do remember taking a test to see which faction I would be in some game that looked very cool – but at the moment I can’t remember what the game was called (or find it in my Facebook apps – I just looked) even though my thought was “Wow I’d like to check this game out.”  That said – having the social network site tie in can help promote a game.  Blizzard has World of Warcraft feeds that you can set up on Facebook (and that is nicely tuneable so it doesn’t spam your feed) so anyone who friends me will get occasional updates about what I’m doing in World of Warcraft, which if they don’t already play, may get them interested.

Today I came across a new Blizzard site, designed to promote the upcoming expansion pack – Cataclysm.  It is called Darkmoon Faire.  Unlike the achievement feed I think this has more potential to draw new players in. The fact that I got “1 Light in the Darkness” is just some random fact for most. However “fortunes’ and “factions” and hints of some of the elements of what makes World of Warcraft interesting might draw in new players who might just think of the game as just being “beating up on monsters”.   I haven’t had a chance to do much on the site yet, but just reading through the FAQ and glancing at the page it definitely shows an evolution of Blizzard’s socialification activities.

The interesting thing about the socialification of a game like World of Warcraft is that as an MMO it already has a social component.  We have guilds, groups, group activities, interaction with other players who are near you, etc.  However, the social aspect within the game is in its own realm (literally).  Guilds may create websites that people can socialize and discuss things outside of the game, and many do.  However, there is the game (or virtual world) social network and then there is the “real world” social network.  With the integration into sites such as Facebook (and Twitter) the divide between “virtual world” and real world becomes increasingly permeable.  Some will chose not to participate (as with RealID) or they may chose a mixed participation.  They may let friends know their interest in WoW through something like the Darkmoon Faire site, but yet not share their particular identities within the world.  However, as socialification of games continues keeping that division becomes more of conscious choice rather than just the natural state of things.

My friend @alizasherman tweeted:

Do you use an iPhone/iPod/iPad? Do you let your kid (under 10) use it? Tell me what you have/what they use & how old!

And I was struck by how “current age” this question is. iPads/iPods and other touch devices are still relatively new. Do you give kids a chance to play with fancy electronics or geeky luxury devices?
However, if you think about how these touch devices are being used, I think we will see these devices quickly becoming “just what people have.”

I’m sure back when the printing press just started & when paper & ink was expensive and more challenging to get someone might have asked the same thing. At what age did you let your kid handle books? At what age did you let them use a quill?

Now we give children special books that are safe for the crib, and paper and crayons are handed out as soon as the dexterity to use them is there. “At what age did you let them” for paper and books would seem almost odd. How long before touch devices reach the same state?

The one place where there is a significant difference between books and touch devices is in the staticness of the data. If you handed your child “The Giving Tree” you can be pretty sure that it will have the story “The Giving Tree” in it and later…it still will have that story and not much else (other than perhaps some crayon marks.) With your Kindle or iPad the data is not that static. It may have “The Giving Tree” on it, but it could just as easily have any random thing on it. Does the dynamic nature restrict its easy givability? Or will we simply have unnetworked (or restricted network) touch devices for babies and small children and progress from there.

Yesterday I found out that seesmic.tv is going offline. To be honest I haven’t been stopping by there, and the .tv part of seemsic is mostly a vestige of how the company originally started, so its closing makes sense. Nonetheless I find myself greatly saddened (at 2am after my dog woke me up) and so I post. For me seesmic.tv was a big turning point for me. This whole blog was started mostly as an experiment with embedding plugins in this new “Web 2.0″ thingie. I was tweeting some and joining chats in the live broadcasts on places like blog.tv and ustream.tv. With seesmic.tv something else was started. I was part of their early beta users. We were all experimenting with this new thing and in these video experiments we developed some very real friendships. I remember conversations on politics where we found we could have different views and still discuss. We had late night silly discussions about who knows what, and early morning greetings over coffee. We had conversations with the famous that Loic brought through, such as Deepak Chopra and others. We played word games and charades. We helped friends teach their children about the world by sharing videos about where we lived.

In all this video at all hours of the night I gained confidence and voice. My friends inspired me and rather than a shy hidden person I started to think of myself as outspoken and someone with something to share. In the end seesmic.tv played its part in my life, and it left me changed and now it goes on into memory. It is sad that we won’t have any more #oldseesmicers reunions on seesmic, but perhaps it will encourage me reaching out in other ways.

When I tried to go back to sleep as the memories of seesmic.tv washed over me I was reminded of the image of a sand mandala. So many intricate patterns, precisely placed colors of sand. And then – with the sweep of the broom the beauty is scattered to be nothing more than a memory. But…the changes wrought through the work of placing the sand – those last – the impact was made. It isn’t in having the pattern before you that makes the difference but having had that beauty exist.

A while ago I wrote about “The Gamer Divide” and how I think we are approaching a time when gaming is viewed as normal or even positive, instead of some thing that you might want to avoid mentioning.

Just this week Forbes had an article on How Playing Video Games Can Boost Your Career. It features a guildie of mine (Hi Elliot!), and makes some good points about how game skills, especially multi-player games, can provide real career building skills.

I think my favorite quote was:

“We’re finding that the younger people coming into the teams who have had experience playing online games are the highest-level performers because they are constantly motivated to seek out the next challenge and grab on to performance metrics,” says John Hagel III, co-chairman of a tech-oriented strategy center for Deloitte.

But head on over to Forbes and read the whole thing.

A couple of years ago I and a number of amazing people put on a conference in Colorado called the Thin Air Summit.  At the time what we now call social media or online journalism or citizen journalism was still using the moniker “New Media”.  At this conference we talked about what this new media is, how to use it, how to create it, and what its potential was.  The conference was a great success.  Our goals, in addition to having conference that was of value to the attendees, was three part:

1. Have a tech/social media conference in Colorado
2. Help connect the local social media people so they can build on the local resources (instead of finding locals by going to a conference in LA).
3. Raise the visibility of Colorado in the tech/new media world.

Since then there have been many conferences (and unconferences) in Colorado on social media topics.  Sometimes only a little push is needed to open the floodgates. The people who attended the conference got a lot of meeting other people with like interests in the area.  Networking and connections were made.  Additionally Colorado, which was already a huge (if somewhat hidden) force in tech and social media has become increasingly visible.

Each year I ponder if there will be a Thin Air Summit II, and thus far the pieces haven’t come into place – many of the original people people who made the first one possible have been busy with other projects, and the timing hasn’t seemed right.  However, I was recently encouraged when I read the Wikipedia article on TED, and it mentioned that there was a 6 year hiatus between the first TED and the annual TED  that started in 1990.   In the mean time, I will leave you with my closing remarks from  The Thin Air Summit ’08.

Going from non-observant to an observant Jew has all sorts of challenges along the way.  One of the challenges is that the comfortable routines often go away as the places you hung out at become “not an option” due to reasons of kashrut.   Back when I lived in Santa Cruz my favorite way to begin the day was a bike ride to Java House – which was this big converted warehouse – where I would have a cup of coffee or chai and a croissant. I would enjoy the food and drink while listening to the classical music and watching the sunlight filter in to the room.   It was wonderfully refreshing way to begin the day before heading on in to work.

Queue the passage of time and the taking on of observance and even replicating that morning ritual was not so simple. For some reason the taste of a croissant was an essential part of the memory.  I suppose it is a bit silly, but sometimes I have food connections with a memory as much as a scent connection with that time and feeling.  Over a number of years I looked to see if there was any place online that sold real, with butter (Cholov Yisroel) croissants that I somehow could get shipped out to my in the middle of the country location.  As it turned out, I had no luck in my searches.

Finally a little more than a year ago I decided to take matters into my own hands and just make some croissants.  I found a recipe online that seemed to be from a likely authentic and good source. Gathered up the ingredients and made some croissants.  I did not remember the butteriness of the pastry.  Wow it was intense.  I don’t know if it was a lack in the old croissants or simply the lack of butter in most of my daily food but the taste was intense.

Amusingly not long after making my own I was planning a trip to Los Angeles to visit my parents and in checking out the kosher establishments available in the area, lo and behold, there was a kosher French patisserie that was Cholov Yisroel, that had opened in the Pico Robertson area.  When I made it to LA the first stop was to Delice Bakery to order some baked goods and a plain croissant and a cappuccino.  As I sat by the window to watch people walk by, and bit into my first piece of croissant I was in heaven.  It tasted very much like the ones I had made, but the pleasure of eating baked goods someone else had made, and enjoying the view and music was just such a pleasure.

Now when I come out to Los Angeles I pick up some pastries at Delice Bakery and each time I truly appreciate the baked goods.  Back when it was just grabbing something at the coffee shop, I obviously appreciated the food, but having it be a rare treat certainly has elevated my appreciation of such.  This morning for breakfast I was able to enjoy another croissant and realize how different food can be when it is not quite so every day.  Perhaps it is worth enjoying the more common food that way as well.

Oh, and if you happen to be in LA, not far from Pico and La Cienega, it’s worth dropping by Delice Bakery, whether you keep kosher or not.

On more than a few sites I’ve been seeing posts where the focus of discussion is the “gamer stigma”.  This is the perception that playing of games is some how a sign of wasting time with something meaningless, or a stigma of gamers in the workplace, or a game could be the “cause” of a relationship break down.  All these focus on the “defect” of gamers.   On the other hand I’ve been seeing quite a few posts about the positive effects of gaming such as improved brain function, benefits for the autistic, and helping seniors get more fit.  All this focus and increased discussion makes me think that we are nearing a transition point in the perception of games, not too unlike the transition point with the internet not that many years ago.

I remember when I was busy on the internet, back before it was something everyone used, before google was a verb. For most, the internet was seen as this time suck.  A waste of time at best, a source of addiction at the worst.  My parents found it interesting that I used the internet but really could see no use for it themselves.  Eventually my uncle got my retired grandfather on it and he took to it like a fish to water.  He communicated with people with like interests, looked up genealogy and was happy to use it.  Not too long after my parents started using it and now they keep busy on it much of the time.   Although there are still some who don’t use the internet, societal perception sees using the Internet as normal.  Yes all the bad uses and behaviors that could be associated with the Internet still exist, but those are people related issues, not tool related issues – and they are recognized as such.

Gaming isn’t there yet.  There is, in some ways, a generational divide.  But the above studies show that the perception of what gaming is and who games is changing.  It may well be the retired that get gaming first.  (My dad got a Wii as a retirement gift and he’ll have Epic Mickey once it ships.) But even the casual gaming of Facebook is spreading through the “non-gamer” crowd.  More and more games are being introduced as not just “things kids do when they should be outside” but valid recreation or even tools to use that can change the world. Gaming is something we’ve done throughout the history of civilization – even as adults.  Somehow with the industrial revolution gaming dropped to “child’s play”, perhaps in pursuit of the more uniform worker.  However that is changing, and it will be interesting seeing how that will affect the tools we use and the way we work together.

Way back at SXSW I had the great privilege of getting to meet and talk with a couple of people from my Guild, Joi and Elliot.  We discussed a lot of great topics, but one that sparked some thoughts that I wanted to share here was our discussion on philanthropy, or perhaps more accurately cultures of giving.

For many people the idea of giving or donating, other than the occasional beggar, fits within the context of donations organizations.  NPR runs regular funding drives, Corporations do “match funds”.  Texting donations for relief efforts for Haiti had specific organizations that took the funds and directed the funds to the relief efforts.   Then there are causes or works that we want to support, whether they be political or the arts.   Often things can be justified or given “more nobleness” by donating a percentage of profits to a particular cause.   In this culture there is a strong value given to giving, but within the context of giving to the larger society.

In our discussion at SXSW it came up that in some cultures giving to the “society at large” isn’t something that is viewed as valuable.  This isn’t to say that that they don’t value giving, they are no less generous than other people.  It is just that giving takes place in the context of “family”, whether relatives or a more extended chosen family.

From the perspective of those who see strong value in “society at large giving” this can at first glance seem surprising.   By giving to these organizations we influence and participate in the building of society.  To focus only on giving to family seems on one hand short sighted, and on another not as selfless as giving beyond the family.  Giving is occurring, but only to those that are known, only within a close circle.

I can understand that view, and I do see value to giving to societal causes.  However I would not rate one type of giving as being better than the other. Rather both are necessary.

It is interesting with these big causes that we contribute to, we are often thinking globally and acting globally.  With the ever present Internet and the global economy we are a global society.  However it is very easy to donate globally and keep the connection to those charities at a distance.  We may be doing good things in the world, but neglecting the needs close at home.

In one community I lived in we had a fund that was set up to help out those in the community who had financial needs.  The woman administering the fund would find out who was struggling and then would anonymously pay their power bill, or discreetly provide them groceries in a way that did not embarrass those that needed the funds, and at the same time keeping the donor anonymous as well.  She was really amazing.  In our community there were some real financial experts who made and donated millions.  My husband and I donated a portion of our monthly charity to them, hardly what I would think was a “major” contribution.  It turns out our donation was the majority of the funds for this charity.  This isn’t toot my horn – it is to express my shock.  There were many people in the community, one where everyone gave charity to the extend that they could.   Yet the funds were almost entirely going to those good organizations helping the poor in other countries, or the arts, or research.  These funds were not being given to help those who needed locally, their immediate community, their extended family.

The truth is it is easy to see why that might be.  No great movements or societal structures are being built by feeding hungry families in the community.  It made their lives easier, perhaps gave them the encouragement they needed.  But results, what results could be reported in the here and now.   Also, how much attention to do we pay to the local community.  We have jobs that take us away from home, often far away.  We have news that comes in from all of the world that makes whatever is happening locally seem trite.  We have connections flung far and wide.

In some senses it is easier to give to causes and global charities.  They are vetted, they have relevance in where we spend our focus.  But at the same time a key part of society is the communities in which we live and the people that we care for.  If we don’t care and support our extended family, then what foundation do we have.

So I do encourage giving to causes that benefit society at large.  It is how we build the world.  But at the same time remember that as important as it is to think globally, it is equally important to think and act locally.  Those that give to their extended family are key to society, a foundation that shouldn’t be left behind.