Disqus - Latest Comments for CathleenRitt

Re: Wisdom of (this) crowd?

CathleenRitt — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:57:36 -0000

First of all, I cannot believe you are turning me down in order to do this event. Especially since your plenary talk is exactly what I want you to talk about. Maybe you can pull a Phil Collins at Live Aid move and perform in Amsterdam in the morning and then fly on the Concorde to Boston to speak at my event in the afternoon. We are the world after all. I suppose I'll have to settle for replaying the tinny live streaming version.

On a serious note, I am forwarding your topic to Bob R., who did a lot of work on the telecom - financial services meld in the early '80s. I promise to think about it too. My instincts tell me that when technology levels the playing field, then certain elements of defining the vertical become more important or need to be more specific. The classic concept that if everyone can use Yahoo finance to get the same information, then how do you differentiate your business and what you're doing with it? It may mean that intellectual property becomes a bigger issue and it probably is what underlies the trend to patent methodologies and processes rather than stuff. I hope that helps and that you meet 6 endowment CIOs there.

Re: Three Changes I Wish Facebook Would Make

CathleenRitt — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:27:41 -0000

I don't know what their motivation is. I saw a Facebook blog that gave me the impression they're trying to get people to use the site more for normal stuff, like make lunch dates with each other using Events. So I think you're probably right about serving up more ads.

I feel like they just can't get the little things right at all. Like you can block people from sending you apps but you can't block them from sending you events. It goes to the reciprocity thing - I don't mind friending people on Facebook, I just wish they didn't think I cared about them.

Re: Quid Pro No

CathleenRitt — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:04:51 -0000

Seth,

Thanks so much. I think Chris does a great job of bringing these questions out in the open and having us puzzle it out with him. He helped me a few years ago when I had maybe 30 followers. I got a DM from a guy to let me know he was breaking up with me as a follower. "you're a nice girl..." I was traumatized. That's taking the real world too far, a silent unfollow was all that was needed. Glad this post introduced us.

Re: Quid Pro No

CathleenRitt — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:32:49 -0000

Marti - I've had similar things happen recently. I went back through my favorites - what else is there to do when you have a book to write - and found all these @replies from people and to people that I don't follow or communicate with anymore. I couldn't even tell you why. I've been feeling melancholy about it, but I end up going back to my point in my comment to Chris, some of these relationships aren't as real as you think or hope they might be unfortunately. And people get busy or don't have time, etc.
One follower in particular dumped me and it puzzled me so much that I sent him an email apologizing for whatever I had said or done, but got no response. I comforted myself with another thought from my comment to Chris, that whatever it was, it was his thing not mine.
The other thing I told myself is that maybe some people have started consolidating their info. Now that you can get your Twitter stream on Facebook and FriendFeed, if you use those more it might make sense not to follow on Twitter. I don't know, probably nobody does that, but it makes me feel better to think so.

Anyway, I think the whole "add value" is a lot of crap especially if adding value is defined as Retweeting- that's just playing telephone. If you tweet something nice, thoughtful, funny or smart once a week, you're adding value.

Gary Vee made a great comment at the 140 Conference. He said that even if you have only 1 follower, that is 1 person that cares about what you have to say. Just like I tell my friends when their boyfriends dump them, "you're better off without them." So if people are unfollowing us, that's a blessing because then we are not giving our energy to people that don't appreciate it, same as when we unfollow them.

Anyway, I love all your hats and I, like Chris, am not only proud to follow you, I'm proud that you follow me. (If you still do, I better check - ha ha)

Love,
Cathleen

Re: Quid Pro No

CathleenRitt — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:39:19 -0000

Chris,

Until reading this post and these comments, I had never understood the point of one of my favorite parts in the classic book, "Go Dog Go." If you recall, 3 or 4 times throughout the book 2 dogs coming from opposite directions meet on a street corner or some other locale. They have the same discussion every time:

Dog 1: "Hello, do you like my hat?"
Dog 2: "I do not."
Dog 1: Goodbye
Dog 2: Goodbye

They each walk away, noses in the air, alone, in the direction they were originally headed.

The last time they meet Dog 1 is wearing some badass, Mad Hatter/kitchen sink hat the size of small house. Dog 1 asks Dog 2 something like, "Now do you like my hat?" and Dog 2 says something like, "I do, I like your hat very much." They happily walk off together, arm in arm.

What I like about the dogs is that they can be direct and almost rude to each other, even though they live in the same town and see each other all the time. Paradoxically it's harder to be that direct in social media where a friend is frequently a stranger that you have no real world connection with and won't see on the street in your town, or ever, for that matter. Perhaps fear of viral retribution keeps everyone in a zone of polite following, friending and silent ignoring.

When invited to something, there really is no reason to say "I don't like your hat," but to politely decline or ignore, just as you did. Most of the time that's easy since there's a mass invite of some sort. It sounds like this guy made a special point of asking you. I don't know how you politely declined, you may have done what I am about to suggest. Perhaps in the future if you remember that the person bought your book/joined your fan page/interacted with you in a Twitter convo or you would like them to do that someday, you can offer a richer polite decline along the lines of "you've been such a good support to me, but I really can't be much help because I don't know enough about it and can't give it the time you deserve." Maybe your polite decline sounded like "I do not like your hat" to him and he just would have been happy with a little deeper acknowledgement of him and his support for you. Who knows? The point of all this is, Who cares? His reaction was his problem, not yours.

There is a tremendous difference between even your best online relationships and your best real world relationships. The former - even the very best ones - tend to be more polite and guarded, and therefore less honest. It would have been nice if you had said to the guy "I do not like your hat." and he had said goodbye and went on his way. But it sounds like he expected to be treated as an online relationship - polite reciprocity followed by a complete lack of engagement - and you treated it as a real world relationship.

Online relationships won't be real relationships until you can think and act the same as you would in the real world. You have just gotten there ahead of some, but it has to happen for all of us for all the reasons you wouldn't have 50,000 friends in the real world.

So next time some online friend asks you the equivalent of "Do you like my hat?" ask yourself whether this online relationship warrants real world, honest behavior. If not, say "yes I do." and take the hat - sign up for their stupid app or fan page - then keep walking in the same direction you were headed. When he or she is safely out of sight, stuff the hat in the trash. Unsubscribe, ignore, or never login again.

Hello. Do you like my solution? Either way, Goodbye.

Re: Streaming Kills Piracy

CathleenRitt — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:38:30 -0000

Thrillist.com sent this email today http://www.thrillist.com/nation/iziria Izria.us for sharing and streaming music. On closer look it may be the antithesis of what you're talking about, but thought you would find it of interest.

Re: Streaming Kills Piracy

CathleenRitt — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:49:19 -0000

Fred, I thought you would be interested in this story from the FT, because you write often about how your teenage children are using and consuming tech and media. Coincidentally, it's related to your subject today.
Morgan Stanley TMT bankers in London had a 15 year old intern write about his and other teenagers' media consumption. MS found it so revealing, they published it as a research report and received more responses than usual. Here's a link to the story http://is.gd/1xgTd and a link to the report http://is.gd/1xhiZ (also in the story).

Re: Think the Recession is Bad? See Great Depression Photos on Flickr

CathleenRitt — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:22:40 -0000

I got a head start on Flickr and have been using Great Depression pictures to compare to and comment on conditions today. My photo-toons take a humorous and irreverent look at current events as seen through these old, classic photos. The idea is to make this current Depression a great one! http://www.flickr.com/photos/cathleenritt/sets/...

Re: Twitter is our id, Facebook is our Ego

CathleenRitt — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:05:32 -0000

I completely agree with the way you and Howard Lindzon differentiate between how Twitter and Facebook are used. Your id vs. ego comparison is apt. I think it's borne out by the difference between my friends that are new to social networking. Few are on Twitter and most think they're being wild and crazy by being on Facebook. I mostly use Facebook as my Personal Life ego page - so it still has id elements.

That must make LinkedIn the Superego.

The differences between Twitter and Facebook are one of the reasons so many of Facebook's design changes that make it more Twitter-like bother me. I have always seen and used the two as complements to each other. Now, they're not really competing, they're less complementary and there's a lot more rmuddling. Half the time that I comment on a Facebook entry I learn that it was a tweet and I missed the chance to get in the Twitter conversation. I guess that's where FriendFeed comes in.

The number of comments disagreeing with you initially surprised me, but it gives evidence to my theory about Twitter. I I believe Twitter is the ultimate free country. A tabula rasa. Twitter is what you want it to be for you. Therefore to the extent that individuals like you, Howard and me use Twitter for unfettered thoughts, then that is how WE use it. So for us, the id is a good comparison and your post is correct. We're just one kind of Twitter user. Twitter is our Rorschach Test.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/04/you-have-entered-no-retweeting-zone.html

CathleenRitt — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:37:02 -0000

I love you!!!! I created this list of my tweets mocking retweets http://is.gd/uBns

Re: A Deeper Dive Into The First Quarter VC Investment Numbers

CathleenRitt — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:00:57 -0000

Thank you so much. Cleantech is an area I think will be of particular interest to my readers, so I need to learn more and will check out amee.

Re: A Deeper Dive Into The First Quarter VC Investment Numbers

CathleenRitt — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:57:38 -0000

Fred,
I just started a blog for foundation and endowment investment officers that's in very early stage/experimental mode. I wrote on TechCrunch and VentureBeat's take on the decline in VC investments in Q1, focused on their respective analysis of the decline in Cleantech investments. It helped to hear how you explained the drop. Here's my post http://is.gd/tnpF

Re: The Editor Dillemma

CathleenRitt — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:33:16 -0000

Fred, I saw this post just now about GooseGrade and remembered you had talked about wanting a service like this. I've read through the original comments from 2 months ago and saw that others had suggested it, but with mixed reviews. Perhaps it has improved since then, so here's the link in case you want to revisit. http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/03/20/crowd-s...

Re: Where To Go For Inspiration?

CathleenRitt — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:06:25 -0000

Fred,
I am several days behind on this so maybe what I have to say has been covered or ruled out, but with that caveat in mind...

Several years ago I read an article by Seth Godin where he talked about "zooming". From what I remember it was like "break out of the box Lite". He used the idea of the zoom in or zoom out to talk about ways you can get inspired by just expanding the boundaries of what you normally do. One of the best examples he gave, was to buy magazines that you wouldn't normally read. That's advice I follow to this day. Sometimes I find something new and interesting, many times I don't, but at least it gets my brain working in a different way.

I find that the best way to be creative is to create in other venues. So, maybe taking a sculpture class or doing more podcasting or video blogging can inspire you.

On Twitter I like to go on the public timeline every so often and just see what new people appear randomly and check out their pages. it's amazing how many different ecosystems exist on Twitter that have nothing to do with tech bloggers, etc. I am Twitter friends with what I think is the gay community of indianapolis because of that. There's also a site called random tweets that picks 10 tweets a day from various feed snapshots throughout the day and there are some funny, creative ideas on that one.

Roger Van Oech is on Twitter - if you don't know him, he's a leader in creative thinking - Michael Hyatt is a CEO that blogs who is on Twitter, maybe reaching out to him will give you ideas for how he handles it.

I am guessing your trip to Europe will help too - just an afternoon in an art museum can be inspirational - but the trip will probably also open your eyes to the bigger picture about tech, web 2.0 and its place in the world. I think that would be something good for you to write about.

If all else fails, think of A-Rod every October. I believe he chokes so much because he's afraid he's going to choke and because he's trying so hard not to choke. Sometimes you have to take a step back and say, I'm not being creative right now. I'll take a break.

I would not have other people write the blog - what I would suggest you do is interview them yourself and write those up as profiles- that way you're getting their ideas, but you are still writing.

This advice may hurt, it's advice I should give myself, but Twitter less. Yes, Twitter less frequently. If you can't do that, go back over your tweets periodically to see what you sent out in a short bursts that could be expanded on for a blog post. I find that the @replies you receive can help you form an idea. I got 2 stand-up bits from Twitter banter.

Finally thanks for posting this because it got my creative juices flowing writing the response.