NYTimes columnist David Brooks keeps writing the coolest stuff. Here's some snippets from the latest, on the ascendency of geek culture:

"The jock can shine on the football field, but the geeks can display their supple sensibilities and well-modulated emotions on their Facebook pages, blogs, text messages and Twitter feeds. Now there are armies of designers, researchers, media mavens and other cultural producers with a talent for whimsical self-mockery, arcane social references and late-night analysis."

and

"Barack Obama has become the Prince Caspian of the iPhone hordes. They honor him with videos and posters that combine aesthetic mastery with unabashed hero-worship. People in the 1950s used to earnestly debate the role of the intellectual in modern politics. But the Lionel Trilling authority-figure has been displaced by the mass class of blog-writing culture producers."

Here's Alex Polvi's  sweet one from the Vidooop identity contest--(and maybe a reason to take a break from life in the Valley, see if you can spot what I mean):

I'll be at the Editor & Publisher conference in Las Vegas for the next couple of days, in support of the Knight Foundation announcement of the 2008 Knight News Challenge winners.

If you're not aware of this Knight program, it's a multi-year grant program that supports innovative ideas that use digital media and technology (mobile, platforms, etc.) to transform local and regional community news and support discourse in the commons. Knight has funded both very location specific projects and much more platform-driven efforts and these efforts have jump-started platform and tool development around local, community, news and even some social justice and accessibility issues,because of how well-distributed the funding has been.

Last year's News Challenge (2007) winners iwent to 25 individuals, and to private and public entitiesthat ranged from individual developers to  MIT to MTV. This year's list of winner's is equally cool, and the announcement of the winners is tomorrow.

In two weeks, I move out of the Silicon Valley area for a brief stint and head for the next great adventure. The work it's taken to get to this moment and the degree of focus getting a start-up into even a semblance of operating mode is considerable, and I feel like the longer, more reflected and crafted pieces I wanted to--and occasionally wrote and published--on this blog, have suffered.

Instead of commentary on social media, it's been tasks, chores, logistics, errands, recruitment, funding, operations, moving--all the time, pretty much (with some writing specs and planning).

Even my reading has narrowed down alot more into the startup stories--Hacker News is my new best friend.

So starting this week, I'll be doing more blogging about where leaving Yahoo has led me--to starting a new company--and about the start up experience in general.  My intent is to chronicle what happens to us over the next four-six months. I want to capture the experience of pulling a team together, creating a plan and a product, and share some of the stories of winding our way through the funding and focusing process, getting to alpha, and making real quality execution and value happen.  I've started alot of businesses, run my own consulting company, and been an exec building value at a number of big companies--but this is my first run at a true start-up--and the engines are reving now.

Meanwhile, I know many other people have knowledge and experience to share. So, iff you have great reading, great resources, or stories to share, please post in  the comments, or ping me directly...thoughts, comments, etc. welcomed.

Chuck , the SEO Rapper, Prophetic Prophet sez: "My 9 to 5 is in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Consulting at an agency called Pop Labs." These videos are where his passion lies--

Susan sez: No doubt there are many performances at web advertising sales meetings and awards dinners in Chuck's future.

I'm moderating a panel at BlogHer. in July on Who We Are: "Coming Out" via Blog
Here's the descriptor:

"No, this doesn't only apply to the most common meaning of "coming out", but rather to taking the brave step to reveal and address something highly personal to your blog community. The risks are real, but what about the rewards? Susan Mernit will moderate a discussion with some very brave bloggers. Stephanie Quilao blogs about health and a positive body image. Making the decision to blog a bulimia relapse risked losing a core audience who counted on her to be a voice of body image reason. How did they react? JenB has been up front about both mental and physical health issues on her blog. Does she feel supported...or judged? Finally, Sarah Dopp did launch a new project about being gender queer. At first she used a pseudonym, although she shared the site with people she knew. Eventually she came out and associated her real name with the site. Was there fallout? Or none at all. Find out how coming out via blog turned out for these women, and share your own story."

This is a chance to share stories about using blogs both to discover who you are and to share who you are with others--both through the blog and via the blog (as in real world sharing/owning/transparency).

BlogHer is one of my favorites conferences and I hope to see you there.It's July 19-21st, pretty much, in San Francisco.

PS, If female (and male)  CEOS of start-ups and founders of early stage companies would like to do a BOF at BlogHer--let me know; I would be up for that in a major way!

"How do you know if you're in over your head in a healthy way as compared to an unhealthy one?  One entrepreneur gave me a good rule of thumb for this just yesterday.  He suggested that entrepreneurs follow an 80/20 rule - they should always feel in command of 80% of the business, but feel way over their head 20% of the time.  It's that 20% stretch that makes it fun and challenging. "

--Boston VC Jeff Bussgang, writing at Seeing Both Sides, about the stretch running a company can create--he's got some good coping suggestions as well.

Morning, folks. As of right now, I have over 500 readers on friendfeed, many more here on this blog.

If you're interested in my ideas, I highly recommend you join friendfeed and follow me there; I'm adding lots of links in delicious, with comments, that I am not doubleposting here; friendfeed is  good way to see the links I find interesting and am saving/noting.

Just a suggestion.

I'll continue posting here, I am truly a blogging addict, so not leaving this space, but digging some of the other newer tools as well.

"We consciously chose to make the site design appear plain and simple, despite its deep complexity. A white background, blue links, sans-serif font, and largely gray palette all present the site as a straightforward place. The look of the place must never overwhelm the photos themselves. We also tried to create an egalitarian playing field. At a glance, visitors can't differentiate a professional photographer with an enormous lens from an enthusiast just getting started in photography. There is no indication of "quality" apart from the content itself. That also means that it's up to the viewer to decide for themselves which photos they like to look at and explore without prejudice."

--flickr lead George Oates, writing at length  at A List Apart in a marvelous piece about what other developers can learn about building online experiences from flickr. Tons of good observations, but the simplicity rule is always one to highlight, as is giving the viewer the chance to own the experience..

" Smart people will find big markets."

--Developer, VC legend and YCombinator co-founder Paul Graham, discussing what makes a start-up successful (clue: it's the people, their skill & persistance.)

So, I'm starting to engage in some very specific shifts in behavior, which I want to talk about, both as a means to better share my thoughts and output, and as a way to kick off some talk about how information sharing and discovery is shifting.  Here's the deal:

1) The best place to see what I am writing/talking/thinking about right now is friendfeed. You need to ask to follow me, but if you're not a bot, a link farmer or a spammer, I will approve you.

Why friendfeed? A couple of reasons:
a) FF is an aggregator. This means that since I am doing alot of clipping and commenting and throwing it into  delicious where I can save the info and get it again later, you can see all that there pretty easily. Since my delicious use means  I am not posting as many interesting links on my blog, if you care FF is the place to go.
b) You can comment on items there that you can't comment on on delicious as easily--in other works, the ff interface supports us having a conversation, which is one of the critical points, right?


2) Twitter is a way to escape the echo chamber and  sample voices/people.

I pruned my twitter stream a day ago. to make room for some new voices. I just went and got a bunch, mostly tied to an area I am going to spend time in over the summer. It was amazing how much I learned about the area--and about some interesting people to follow--by using the twitter location search- good way to suss out digerati in a new place.

3) Blogs are longer form and my  virtual ADD is getting worse (but I still love blogging).
I still love blogging, but so much of what I am doing right now is boiling down to snippets, and ff and twitter are good tools for that.

On the other hand, I could never write this post in either medium.

So, question for you all: How are social media tools shifting your discourse?

My favorite poetry writing, gender bending, social cause supporting, product manager organizing, code writing, project planning, great going for a walk and talking friend Sarah Dopp turns 25 today. Happy birthday, Sarah!

If you've never read her blog, start with this:
"I'm 25 years old with 11 years experience building websites and reading poetry at microphones, and four years of self-employment in the tech industry. I've never lied about my age, but I'm done with trying to walk like I'm older than I am. I get to be 25 now. And all of the middle fingers I've been giving social constructions for the last handful of years can relax. I made it. So there."