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"Do I know you?
"I'm sure I've seen you."
This 20-something dark-eyed, curly-topped Latino lad has been to the George Clooney school of charm - he's not shy at all.
His personal space is obviously a little narrow because he's standing close - not quite face to face but close - and his gaze is unflinching.
This is a rare quality - an unflinching but relaxed and interested gaze.
"Don't worry I don't bite, not at work anyway," he coos making direct eye contact.
Irresistible - and he knows it. He's not even trying.
He's half South American-half Canadian but his parents met in Israel so you can't pick his accent.
He makes his job look easy as he throws a line out and reels customers in.
He doesn't smile those gaudy toothy grins that most sales people think are so attractive.
No. He raises his dark brow and his eyes sparkle as if he's really interested and then he acts as if we have already met.
And he makes you feel as though he's pleased to make - not a customer - but an acquaintance.
His art is seduction and he's a master.
He sold $2000 worth of product to a guy at Christmas. I thought I'd reward this bravura performance but then he spoilt it.
As I handed him my card he turned and said, "I like you so," as if the thought had just occurred, "I'm gonna do this for you."
As if I was something special. And off he goes reaching for another product - that's right he's doubling his bet.
Buy this as well and I'll throw in this ... neat. If you buy this .... I'll throw this in for free.
It reminded me a lot of social media actually - that's all I'm gonna say.
Blasphemy is my middle name - if I had one. Apparently, Edgar Allan Poe was not popular because he dared to challenge the optimism of his Age.
I'm not comparing myself to Poe - I'm just saying to question something is to assert your right to know the facts. I'm reading Tales of Mystery and Imagination, a book of Poe's short stories. Really quite interesting. But that's another blog. Did you know that the human being stopped evolving as a species 50,000 years ago.
(The Turning Point: Science, Society, and The Rising Culture, by Fritjof Capra)
The human brain (it's the same size!) and body basically are the same as the BC model - FACT!
Only the power of scientific knowledge and technological skills have evolved. That's a worry isn't it?
(I've held this theory since high school when ancient history was my passion.) What would Aristotle do with Twitter?
What would Socrates do with Facebook? He-he.
There's a thought.
Socrates, the Gadfly who was put to death for challenging the morals of his fellow Athenians. I've been thinking that the most amazing special moments in life are few.
There aren't that many and that's why we remember them, even when they are seemingly insignificant.
In real life there's data flying in all directions in a hundred variations and formats.
What's posted online is finite (contrary to belief) and filtered. Kinda = not the same.
But don't let someone else tell you what those moments are or should be or where they should be conducted!
Is it possible to be more than entertaining online?
Being entertaining is bloody hard after all. Ah well. One o'clock and all's well!
But wait! GIANT! There's a giant washed up on the shore of Liliput. The online reality is being written minute by minute.
We're all in a Jonathan Swift adventure.
New media is Gulliver and we're the little people.
Are you still here? The End.
According to Project Gutenberg, the works of Edgar Allan Poe are not copyrighted in the country of his birth the United States of America.
So you can download the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) for free.
His work contributed to the development of the sci-fi genre.
Alas, he was not beloved by his generation or generations to come, as Dr Spock or Captain Kirk creator Gene Roddenberry. The grim view of life in the works of this Gothic writer didn't fit with the ethos of his time:
"Poe, too, showed an alternative to the optimism and complacency and materialism of his age, a dream of beauty and primal unity which always contained the probability of terror and darkness. Few people at the time heeded him, but since his death, and particularly in the twentieth century, his voice has been widely heard and recognised, like the meaningful shape from the past so beloved of Gothic writers." _ John S Whitley, School of English and American Studies, University of Sussex (Introduction to Tales of Mystery and the Imagination) The reason I'm sharing this with you is because I read it and thought it interesting and relevant - feel free to disagree on any points.
When I read his stories I'm struck by his keen eye for human failings - they are after all as much a part of our nature as our virtues. But I understand why his work offended polite society.
I'm all for a polite society but I'd like to believe that it's possible to be polite, honest and forthright.
As long as we champion our right to freedom of speech, we should allow people to disagree.
Basically, if I disagree I'll unfollow you. Polite society does ostracization quite well normally.
And it seems the online community is hell bent on tailoring personal realities to fit narrow perspectives in an effort to maintain maximum stability and minimize discomfort and maximize sales. If it's so comfy and warm online, is offline reality too much for people to bear?
This mental disconnect may be causing the problems developing in our "real shared reality" where the society is no longer so polite.
So this great online questing for connection between mind, body and spirit and such may all be for nought in the end.
What if it creates "impatience", "rudeness", "bullying" and downright "mean-spiritedness" - maybe even "murder".
Where does the greatest benefit to humanity lie? To lie or not to lie - online or offline? And people think Hamlet is confusing. Someone said to me last week: "People used to provide good service without talking about it and now all they seem to do is talk about it but they fail to provide good service."
That's the problem!
I adore the sharing aspect of social media but it's only really good when its genuine - you recognize the "spark" when it's there even if its centuries old, even if it's thrown together in a pique of inspiration by a no one-in-particular, an individual with something to share for the sake of it. Poe opens his short story The Man of the Crowd with a quote: "This great evil, not to be able to be alone."
The protagonist in this short story follows a man through the city who is always in a crowd - he's lost, always lost even in a crowd.
It could be the first ever description of a social media fiend. People want to be individuals but they NEED to be part of the crowd. I use the word fiend for humour.
Real fiends relish fiend-dom so I doubt they'd be offended. I don't really want to hurt anyone's feelings.
But I know doctors and researchers are concerned about the effect this addiction or obsession is having on the development of the brain in young people - this need to be connected to multiple platforms, this need to be stimulated all the time.
Apparently, boys are boys until at least the age of 24 and often never grow up - so where this leaves them is anyone's guess. ;) I've started wondering about something else. I've started wondering about the need to be influential - the need to have power over other people's opinions without actually contributing anything to the conversation apart from RT. Most anyone is capable of communication but there's the great fear of "having nothing to contribute" or "saying the wrong thing" or "being vulnerable". Fiends often go on and on about the power of social media and how great it is for freedom of expression and sharing - but in the next breath they lay down the rules by Tweeting out lists about social media #failure.
For example they scorn someone who claims to be published when they are only self-published.
So to be cool you need to have a publishing deal with the "old media".
Edgar Allan Poe was paid only $9 for the work which made him a household name, The Raven.
He self-published a lot of work as the editor of various publications. So-called "writers" think that they will be able to make money from writing online - it's an interesting concept since writers and artists have always struggled to make a living off their craft - perhaps social media will change this eventually. I don't count self-help books.
They are not cultural heritage - most of them describe a process, or someone else's philosophies from a personal perspective.
Do they add value to cultural identity? Do they contribute to the development of new ideas? Are romance novels cultural heritage? (I'm expressing an opinion - it's just MY opinion and I'd be interested in your opinion) I'm probably wrong here because I haven't done any research but the writers making money online are well-established names, people who write great copy (as in advertorial), marketing & PR types, or they sell self-help advice - published by a publishing house or self-published.
I'm sure there are probably a few savvy writers making money. Perhaps Australian crime writer Gabriel Lord who is currently enthralling young readers with her series Conspiracy 365.
She's got teacher-librarians on her side. Now there's power!
Or is it because I went to Applications and turned off the switch so that Facebook's partners can't automatically customise me if and when I go to their sites??
Time Traveller's Guide To Social Media in Australia is an eBook by Lisa Yallamas.
Intro:
Heretics. People who throw the proverbial spanner into the works and turn the world upside down.
“The Earth is ROUND” …
How long did it take before someone decided that Galileo was right and it was now necessary to actually change the curriculum? It actually took hundreds of years because the first person to write about the Earth’s girth was an Indian sage named Yajnavalkya
Yajnavalkay wrote that the Earth was spherical in the Shatapatha Brahamana and the Greek mathematician Pythagoras reached the same conclusion in 540BC.
The Catholic Church persecuted Galileo in 1600 for advocating that the Earth is indeed round and is not the centre of the universe. No one would have believed him even if he could’ve tweeted it out!
No matter. Christopher Columbus sailed way before this wrangle and of course discovered the Americas. “I’ve just discovered America” – what a tweet!
Excerpt:
Perhaps your feelings for social media are akin to those of Isaac Nichols – one of the forgotten founding forefathers of Australia’s communications network – when the judge sentenced him to seven years hard labour in the penal colony of Australia back in 1790.
He didn’t know that would be the making of him. He served his term and ended up our first postmaster.
His mission?
Isaac had to deliver the mail and stop unscrupulous colonials from stealing mail off the ships to sell back to rightful owners.
Personal information has always had value and people just give away free on the Internet.
So just how did a petty criminal like Isaac acquire enough status in his community to run Australia’s first post office from his home in The Rocks district of Sydney? Trust.
He gained people’s trust through social networking of course!
As a convict, Isaac happened to have the good fortune to be assigned to work for a chap named George Johnston, one of the leaders of the Rum Rebellion – that’s the famous ousting of Captain Bligh as Governor if you recall your history well enough. Isaac escaped flogging this time.
Our Isaac had the wit and good sense to be on the winning side of the argument.
He played the game to the satisfaction of all – including the new Governor Macquarie.
Hey presto! He’s in control of one of the most beloved “social media channels” of his time – the postal service.
Thief and opportunistic convict he may have been but Isaac was no heretic.
Even a convict back in dim light of the candlelight age did thrive by means of social media.
They gifted him 50 acres. He became a successful businessman and sent his sons to England to be educated so as neither would become heretics.
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PAGES and pages and Pages and paGES!
If you can't tell...I'm singing...
The mind boggles again.
Who needs Wordpress now?
I hate coding. Sorry to all coders but it's not my thing.
I don't hate it. I hate that I can't do it.
But now I have pages!
God I LOVE# Posterous!
I don't really care that there's no $ off my site.
Been looking at all the marketing stuff.
That's not me either.
I just want to create.
As if synced, writer-director Katrina Graham and producer Eliot Rifkin both took up their pens to understand the process of posting.
So perhaps it will help others as well. I found it interesting because I understand why I love Posterous blogging so much: it posts everywhere.
It also made it clear why I don't like Facebook so much: it doesn't post anywhere. Monopoly: thy name is Facebook.
The assignment: sell Easter holidays in Queensland.
QTIC boss Daniel Gschwind turns to Facebook and Twitter to save Queensland's tourism industry from an onslaught of bad international publicity.
Daniel Gschwind's (@ThatTourismGuy) people have rung around 600 Queensland tourism businesses which all report a downturn of between 20 and 100 percent.
So the QTIC have created a "proof of life" campaign on Facebook with a page called Take a Queensland Holiday
The sun is shining in Brisbane's Scenic Rim, Fraser Island, the Whitsundays, the Gold Coast, Mackay, the Great Barrier Reef and other destinations but rooms, cottages, swimming pools, boats, planes and bars are empty.
Small businesses which survived a lean Christmas off their savings from fat years now battle against all the international publicity of the Queensland floods.
(Picture: Today's weather)
"The impression that all this publicity gives is that 75 percent of Queensland is flooded so what are overseas visitors to make of this?" Mr Gschwind said.
"It's very consistent response around the state. Very few operators have taken any damage, there are some, but all of them report cancellations and a lack of business."
Scenic Rim tourism operator, the owner of Lilydale Host Farm Pam Hardgrave, rang around her region and found businesses which normally take thousands of dollars a month took only $100 to $200 over Christmas.
Bookings are being cancelled even as the Sunshine State turns on the sun in places unaffected by the floods, says Mrs Hardgrave, who has donated to the flood appeal and is offering SES workers free stays.
"All tourism operators have not been making any money for the past six to 12 months because people haven't had money to spend.
"We normally have an 80 percent occupancy rate but it's between 20-30 percent occupancy over Christmas.
"We have contacted guests who have visited us 20 or 30 times and they've been hit by the floods now."
Queensland flood waters never touched Brisbane's scenic rim, The Whitsundays, Fraser Island, the Gold Coast and many other holiday destinations but tourism operators are struggling to keep their heads above water.
Mr Gschwind, a member of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, opened a Twitter account today (Monday, Jan 17) to get the word out to the world: don't cancel your Easter holidays, come to Queensland.
"We don't want to see a second wave of cancelations go over the industry," Mr Gschwind said.
He's encouraging all tourism operators to post "proof of life" photos on the Take a Queensland Holiday Facebook page.