Having one of those “WTF?” kind of days. Thank God for Captain Picard.
Courtesy of image_macro
Who, BTW, is not nearly as badass as Captain Kirk. So there.
Courtesy roflrazzi.com
Errrr…
This is Must. Be. AWESOME. Dot Com.
If you notice the sidebar of this blog, you’ll see my blogroll looks a little anemic: only a couple links there in no particular order, some related, some not. Instead of throwing a bunch of links up to sites and blogs I visit often and/or love, I figured it would mean more to YOU if I added these things organically. Or, more to the point, socially.
If you’re anything like me, you visit blogs and any other website with an RSS feed and, if you like them, you check out their blogrolls to see what else you may be interested in. This was the 1.0 version of the Web, back when content creators simply blasted shit out into the ether via their platforms, caring not who was paying attention. Blogrolls were one of those methods: endless lists of the author’s favorite sites, people, etc.
Image by inju via Flickr
I’m taking a different approach. Must. Be. AWESOME!‘s blogroll is gonna be just that: AWESOME. Each link will track back to something I’ve either written about or linked to within a post. This way, it will develop naturally and organically. I hope this will create a steady buildup to a larger list of good, productive content on the actual site that people will come back, check out from time to time, and perhaps add to their own RSS readers or newstreams.
Today, I know a bunch of y’all are reading Must. Be. AWESOME! through an RSS aggregator or other service. You may not be coming back to the main site every day. This is OK. While I would love it if you came back all the time and participated in comments discussions, I understand that it can be hassle. No worries, I won’t hate ya for it. But hopefully, every so often when you DO come back, I’ll have some cool new links for you in the blogroll section.
If you’re someone who wants on the Must. Be. AWESOME! blogroll, I only have one piece of advice for you: be social. What’s so great about the internet of today is that I get to feel like I have personal relationships with anyone I interact with. If you’re looking to advertise or sponsor something on my blog, I at least want to get taken on a date first. Talk to me. Socialize with me. Be human. You’ll thank me for it in the long run.
[An addendum: I understand that the formatting for a lot of the text on the sidebar looks kinda dopey and can be hard to read when it runs over a single line. I'm working on fixes, but if anyone out there is a WordPress theme master and wants to help out, I'd love to have you on board. 
I freely admit my XHTML and CSS skills are totally weak.]
Du4 & fellow Open Mike winners
TWTRCON DC invaded the Grand Hyatt last Thursday to a rousing rabble of rock stars. My biggest concern about the event – that it would feature merely a poo-poo load of social media jerks wanking each other off – proved to be completely unfounded. In fact, I met a host of cool cats with whom I hope to continue rocking.
Instead of rehashing everything you can glean for yourselves from the #twtrcon hash, I shall instead focus on the things that I found most moving, helpful, and AWESOME about the event.
What I really dug about this event was how learnable everything was. The speakers, combined with relevant and targeted questions from attendees, produced a live narrative that, to me, is the new 21st century version of academic case studies and symposia: realtime, rapid fire analyses of business experiments in microcommunications. Every single discussion revealed a takeaway… some a little more hard to identify than others, but all just as helpful.
Possibly the most AWESOME of the bunch was Scott Harrison from charity: water. Donations made to this cause fund construction of clean water wells. How Scott and his handful of people go about raising money for this charity is quite remarkable. Charity: water organized “twestivals” in over 200 cities. These events drew in certain communities (knitters, for example) who donated what they could. But the focus of these events was on what the communities cared about, whether it was knitting, drinking, or music. This draws in the people who in turn donate as little as $5 for, say, an event fee. This added up to over $250,000 that charity: water gave back 100% to their constituents.
As AWESOME as that sounds, it gets better. Scott gave some no-shit measurable “do’s and don’ts” about using Twitter (and social media in general). While these reflected his experience with a nonprofit, they were perfectly transferable to businesses and government. Themes like transparency to donors, design sense, the art of surprise, and trust all wove in and out of Scott’s preso. It got me both excited and concerned, which should be an objective of virtually any modern influence campaign.
Armano moderating the Real-Time Organizations Panel. Captain Chris is rocking the fatigues alongside FEMA's own John Shea.
Also of note was U.S. Air Force Captain Chris Sukach‘s very impressive admission that in social media, “if you’re not failing, you’re not trying.” I hardly ever hear that type of honesty from government representatives in this town, much less those in uniform. We expect so little from our government because we’ve been conditioned to think of it as a maintenance mechanism for status quo, and this often translates to lameness. Chris is the type of change agent we need more of in DC.
I do want to thank everybody at TWTRCON who voted for me as part of the Open Mike Contest. I am a shameless ham, and any chance to get up in front of people and entertain flips my shitbiscuits. That said, I did mean what I said about being AWESOME: keeping it simple often kills innovation and coolness. (More on the shittiness of the KISS principle in future posts.)
I want to spend a little time giving some props to the peeps I hung with on this very rocking of days. Amy, Ira, and Kim of Chickdowntown were GREAT fun at Brasserie Beck (check out the website for some cool fashion deals and TWTRCON pics). Had a great conversation with David Puner of Dunkin’ Donuts about their social media strategy, which was enlightening and cool. Many thanks to Brian Block for the iPhone charger (he’s using Twitter for real estate and epically winning). Had a great time laff-testing material with my tablemates Andrea Meier, Ali Long, and Adam Zand. Chris and Rachel from Socialware (a TWTRCON sponsor) were supercool– I expect an invitation to come rock it out with you guys in Austin SOON. Lovely connecting at last with Ogilvy rock star Rohit Bhargava who did a great job manhandling Steve Rubel on the Real-Time Business panel. I’d also like to implore people to visit OrphanBracelet.org, a charity benefiting children orphaned by HIV/AIDS which crusader Monique Watkins turned me onto. And of course, the inimitable David Armano– who appropriately knocked Du4 around for sounding like a used car salesman with an aptly delivered: “Own it!”
The Real-Time Brands Panel
You can find all the presos and a list of other con reports and media here. I have to give Tonia, Anne, and Chris super-kudos for putting such a worthwhile and fun event together. I had a great time funnin’ with everyone. I highly encourage everyone to stay engaged in the TWTRCON conversation and help keep it relevant, fun, and engaging for everyone.
[TWTRCON pics courtesy of @vincentgallegos]
Courtesy of vincentgallegos
Nicely done, Twitter peeps. Full report to follow but suffice to day, TWTRCON DC 09 was a rousing success. Very useful collection of people, discussions, and studies. Met a shitload of great people and even won the Open Mike Contest.
Great meeting everybody, and thanks to all who voted for lil’ ole’ me. I love you longtime. More to follow.
This is Must. Be. AWESOME. Dot com.
Had a lovely time this evening bullshitting with some of the crew coming to TWTRCON DC. Despite our disparities, it’s funny how this thing called Twitter has brought us together. Realtors, educators, marketers, techies: we are all harmonized in some way by this odd little tool. I have to hand it to the Modern Media folks who put this mutha together: so far, this sounds like a great time.
If you’re not coming to #TWTRCON, use the hashtag to follow realtime updates on any number of tools like TweetDeck or TwitterFall (if you aren’t already). I oughtta be running around, causing a ruckus and fucking shit up, so if you’re attending, holla at a brotha via @Du4 and lemme know where yer at. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are probably not even reading this blog.
Con report to follow.
Sometimes, AWESOME simply defies description. Sometimes, the best emotional explosions and reactions to AWESOME are unexpected. Sometimes, it just happens. You can’t explain it. You can’t predict it. You can’t model it.
It just works.
Such is the case of The Venture Brothers.
GO, TEAM VENTURE!
The Venture Bros. premiered to Cartoon Network‘s Adult Swim time block in 2003. Over the course of its 3 seasons (currently in its 4th), the cartoon exemplified an unabashed and unadulterated love of classic genre staples – from depictions of a drug-addled grown up Johnny Quest to a Fantastic Four amalgam voiced by Stephen Colbert. However, each and every episode attacked and murdered genre expectations. The comedic timing of this sharply dialogued show arose not from the stale trappings of one-off jokes or sarcastic parodies of real life, but from the adoration and respect of the humor inherent in the show’s inspirational material. Jackson Publick, along with his showrunning cohort Doc Hammer, has even said that despite the rolling hilarity, the show is ultimately about failure… and how we can find humor in it.
Now, if this hasn’t convinced you to check this wondrous show out on DVD yet… GOOD. What??? Now, I’m discouraging you from checking out this sexy sin of AWESOME? Well, that’s part of the beauty of The Venture Bros’ AWESOMENESS.
The Ventures’ audience grew slowly, almost dismally over the past six years. Indeed, the producers have only just now begun their 4th season. That’s what’s brilliant about the show’s appeal: You have to self-select in to get the joke.
What I mean by that is that The Venture Bros is something of a private club. Part of what has made the show such a phenomenon is its use of the genre culture as marketing. In season 3, for example, Doc Hammer announced a special weekly gig where hardcore fans of the show could order exclusive T-shirts based on each episode, but only for a limited time. These shirts became hot commodities even amongst non-fans, and they drew in larger numbers to the show. Why? Because everyone who discovered the show not only liked the content (and let’s be honest, the content fucking RULES YOUR FACE), but they also liked being in on something exclusive. Something… underground.
This sense of exclusive insider knowledge perpetuated the AWESOMENESS of the show. Granted, there is a level of geektitude and nerdosity built into many Venture Bros fans. As a fan myself, I value that niche fandom too much to let the hoi polloi in on it. Except y’all. Y’all are OK.
One you get in on the inside joke, it’s something you can never come back from. The AWESOME inherent in The Venture Bros makes you a fan for life. You can’t help but ask when the next season is due out, or be mildly curious about the live action dress-up the show’s creators performed on the season 1 DVD, or wonder why the hell you keep coming back to watching stuff like THIS despite its mind-shatteringly weirdness:
I’ll tell you why.
Because it’s AWESOME.
I had an interesting exchange on Facebook the other day about the esoteria of my perspective on being AWESOME, on striving to be more AWESOME, and the like. He brings up some good concerns about this mythical goal where everyone is giving their best effort every time, where there is no mediocrity, where crapulousness is gone. In this state, with everyone being AWESOME all the time, does that become the new standard? Thus defeating the purpose of AWESOME in the first place?
I had to think on this for a while, but my initial reaction I believe is correct: as a collective equilibrium is attained, it must further evolve. So once everyone becomes AWESOME, the “standard” for defining AWESOME must be raised.
In this continuum, is it ever possible to reach a perpetual state of AWESOME?
I’m not sure. I think the way we look at this continuum is important, however. If we consider this quest for AWESOME purely a linear path toward achieving a goal (despite how impossible and/or subjective this particular goal may be), then I think we lost focus on what’s most important: the drive involved that motivates us to be AWESOME. I think it is this drive – or in more cliched terms, the “journey being more important than the destination” – that bears more attention.
The galvanization of oneself to achieve that which is truly AWESOME… well, that’s a tough thing to qualify or quantify. And I suspect it’s different for everyone.
So get achieving, people. Time’s a-wastin’.
{Image H/T Seth @ Dark Zero.}
How in the name of Sir Isaac H. Newton is there not more of this show online? David Lynch’s abortive 1992 follow-up to Twin Peaks, On the Air, was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen… EVER.
It is the SOUL of AWESOME.
Look for Blinky Watts at 6:11 and feel my LOLZ. Anyone who can find high quality video clips of this show (including the 4 unaired episodes), send ‘em my way and I’ll give yez a prize.
This is Must. Be. Awesome. Dot com.
Image courtesy of Brian Lane Winfield Moore
Are you coming to Washington, DC next week for TWTRCON? I’m not terribly certain what the unified purpose of this conference is. Like many “social media gatherings” of the modern age, it may just be an excuse for A) some social media startup to charge the fuck out of its attendees, and/or B) a bunch of social media “gurus” to get together and jerk each other off.
To be fair, the prior TWTRCON in San Francisco seemed to go over well with attendees and guests. There have been quite a few of these types of conferences where people wrestle with what Twitter is and how it can be used for business, marketing, or whatever. I like how inherently social this makes Twitter’s users feel if they can actually unplug from their hashtags and muster up the gumption to shake hands with people they don’t know physically.
Courtesy jdlasica.
So… we’ll see how it goes. One of my ulterior motives for going to this thing is to stalk David Armano and conversate with him about all the cool new things happening at The Dachis Group. Something that’s been intriguing the pants off me in this weltering morass of social media madness has been Armano‘s (and now Dachis’s) concept of “social business design.” I think this concept is going to be the Next Big Thing, with the potential for crossing all kinds of boundaries that social media doesn’t. More about this in detail in a future post.
Let it be known that Ye Olde Du4 has actually submitted an idea to TWTRCON’s Open Mike Contest, and that tweet can be found here. The basic idea is an encapsulation of the intent of this blog (and potentially a future business!). I’m not sure how the judging is performed, but keep your fingers crossed that I’ll have an opportunity to wow the crowd with the power of my ROCK.
If you’re at TWTRCON DC, shoot me a DM at @Du4 to link up.
Monday, October 5th, I attended an event at George Washington University billed as “New Approaches to U.S. Global Outreach: Smart Power on the Front Lines of Public Diplomacy (PD) and Strategic Communication (SC).” A mouthful of whaaaaaat?
The point of said “event” was to purportedly discuss strategic and tactical issues involved in U.S. government communication. Quite a few familiar and some new faces were on the panels, to include Rosa Brooks from DOD’s Policy shop, Daniel Sreebny from the State Department’s Global Strategic Engagement Center (GSEC), public diplomacy scholar Kristin Lord, some old guy from SOCOM’s Strategic Communication Directorate, and a Congressional lawyer that made me want to commit seppuku on the spot.
A bunch of other PD bloggers are going to scholarly and academically get into the nuts and bolts of this discussion, and the conversation will turn back to how sorry we all are that there’s no strategic leadership for PD/SC, how no one can agree on who owns what, how no one cares, blah blah blah.
I, on the other hand, want to know why this community is purposely avoiding AWESOME.
We’ve been having this debate about the delineations and roles/responsibilities of PD, SC, military information support, and all the other information disciplines for years. Like all good alcoholics, we know we have a problem… we just aren’t going to stop drinking because we’re such assholes. We always end up asking the same questions, arriving at a bunch of solutions, but then drop the ball at implementation. Oh sure, there are reams of reports out there analyzing specific problems with the USG’s communication apparatus… but to paraphrase Dr. Bruce Gregory, no one seems to want to actually LEAD this community and establish a SOLID BUSINESS PLAN for implementing reform.
I'm here for yer publik diplomasees.
So what ends happening? Everybody putters about like a mass of retarded lemmings, hanging on the charity of others, hoping someone else will figure things out and give their lives meaning. Meanwhile, it’s Clown Shoes Day every day on the world stage, and the United States is Ronald McDonald.
The tragedy is that this is not even LAME. It’s just… mediocre. None of these people is purposely LAME. Some are weak, some assholish or crapulous. But ultimately, the community is just… meh.
It’s just a community that shows up. Do they care? Sure. Will they do anything about it? Not… really.
Well, wait, doesn’t it count that we’re talking about the issue? Sure. But we’ve been talking for YEARS. People have been railing against the State Department’s mistreatment of the public diplomacy field since the U.S. Information Agency was forcibly integrated into the department in 1999.
The point is, NO ONE’S DOING SHIT ABOUT IT.
The lawyer at the panel basically defended Congress’ abdication of responsibility for fixing the interagency legislation, oversight and budgetary authority. The SOCOM guy complained about antiquated laws. Sreebny said he was new on the job. The refrain was the same: “It’s too HARD.”
Well, you know what, taxpayer-paid-for govvies? THAT SUCKS.
We do not need more administrators managing the status quo. We do not need more lawyers to find new loopholes in the problems. We do not need more apologists for this bullshittery.
We need LEADERSHIP. Moreso, we need AWESOME LEADERSHIP. If this administration is truly about change, then get off your goddamn asses and FIX IT.
Stop the complaining. Stop the beauracratizing. Stop the crack-addled fantasies that this will all be taken care of by someone else.
If you claim to be a public diplomat, a strategic communicator, a PSYOPper, a Foreign Service officer, a counselor, a scholar, a believer… if you call yourself anything that tracks back to this venerable profession then get involved. I, and many of my fellow taxpayers, are tired of you bitching about how screwed up the communication disciplines are. FIX IT!
Defy mediocrity. BE AWESOME.
[Joker pic H/T to Ben @ LikeCool.com.]
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