You ever notice that when you are on social networks that you seem to seek people out that you only have the most tentative of connections with.   I’m as bad as anyone.   I’m speaking of this after a true friend added me yesterday on Facebook.  It’s someone I messaged back and forth a few times with, and may mildly keep in touch with.   After that I went through my graduating class and added more people.  Some people I’m interested in from afar, some I’m interested in communicating with, some I have a passing interest in.   I also didn’t add a few that I wouldn’t be interested in, but I would friend them back if they connected to me.

I was thinking afterward though that just like high school, some of these bonds and connections are true and some of them just a passing fancy where no communication will ever really flow from one end to the other.   I see people that I know vaguely, I’m at least proper enough to stick with people I actually had classes or conversations with.   Some of these people only have friends that they went to high school with.  Some I may be the only one.

Looking at the sociological dynamics is very interesting.   Some people are extremely close with those they went to high school with.   I’m not, mostly since I’ve fallen out of touch with a lot of people.   Moving to Oregon also put a bit more space between me and the rest of the class, and even now I live about sixty miles away – though I play in the community band in that town.

Even the bullies, the preps, or the prima donnas from school, I wish them no ill will.  There was a moment in time I was worried about my standing in the social pecking order, but I think I left that behind when I was an underclassmen in high school.   I’m someone that cares about my immediate social circles and not those of memories of people over a decade old.   If they however wish to know me more in depth then my blog posts allow I’m happy to converse with them, maybe even have a coffee – but things won’t be like they were.  Because of that I don’t judge them by the way they are.

Time has changed most if not all of us.  I’m sure some of them all hang out with the same people from high school, get drunk every night with the same people they drank with when they were underage- but I hope the majority of them have moved from that.   That their dreams have been realized.   We have this spark of moment in time where we had a shared experience and it bounds us.   Not everyone is brave enough to face that moment in their lives, some people want to leave it behind them never to return back.   I’m sure those people I’ll never be able to reconnect with, the saddest part a couple of those were some of my best friends.

To the future and the past, we move forward solid in our own steps.   The echoes of the past follow behind us as we make our way into the unknown.

I think I knew from our first date that my wife was going to be the one I was going to marry.   Granted I literally broke up with my ex the day before I asked her out, but it all worked out.   Though I was twenty -one and she was eighteen it was the first real date either of us had been on.   We had started “going out” with people before, but it was always meeting and doing things in social situations then you labeled as a couple and doing things was just being together and not really a date.  I did ask one girl out on a date previously, but it turned into a double date, so this was my first real date.

It was in September of 1997 and I managed to get off work early and get a hair cut, then I went out to one of our customers and bought her a bouquet of roses.   We went to Chi-Chi’s in Lorain, Ohio driving there in my 1986 Ford Escort.  I ordered a mexican pizza which they burned and she had me send back, and I believe she ordered the chimichanga’s .   We talked about going to the movies afterward and decided on Conspiracy Theory.   Walking to the car I asked her if I was the type of guy she could fall in love with (me=geek, not the best social skills).  She said maybe.   I asked her if I was the type of guy she could see herself marrying, she said she didn’t know.   We then drove over to the movie and had a wonderful time.

A few days later she was having problems with her parents, she was at a cross roads and all upset.  She was sitting on the front stoop of her friends house and that was the first time I ever told her I loved her.  She cried in my arms (not from me saying that, but because of the other stress) and said it back to me.   Three months later we were engaged. Thirteen months later on Jan 2, 1999 we got married.  From that first date until about 2004 when she went back to Ohio to visit family while I was stuck working in Oregon, we never spent more then 24 hours away from one another, over 2600 days of seeing each other at least once every day.

I’m not going to saying everything has always been fantastic, we’ve had our ups and downs.  We have managed to stay together and stay in love.   I love her more each day, and now she is going to be the mother of my child (last year we did say we would do something special for our 10th).  We are opposites, but we are also twins, we are stronger together then we are apart.  We are both critical thinkers, yet I’m the only one that thinks she is the better of the two of us – so sometimes she is wrong.

She is the core of my being and the center of my universe, even though I don’t always show it.   Her thoughts and dreams revolve around mine, like mine do around her.   She is my wife, and I love her.

Well it seems I’ve been lax the last couple weeks in my weekly summaries.  Let’s catch up:

Articles:

I Think Fragmented Communities in Social Networks Are a Good Thing

Interesting – Guess They Don’t have Time to Meet

Web Application Developers Can Learn A Bit From WordPress

Holy Legos Batman (Not About Lego Batman)

Some Great Macro Photography Images

Sad Day For Free Speech For Students

Had to Remove Some Sites From My Lifestreaming Page

Web Companies Today Are On Top Of Customer Service – Traditionals Take Note

Get an E-Mail or Twitter Alert When a Company Changes is Privacy or Security Policy

Pop-up Study Proves Users Will Click Anything

It Had to Happen Eventually – DHS Testing Pre-Crime Detection

Palin Hacker Is Not Indicted …So Far……

VHS Alumni Band 2008 Memories

Did I Blog Without Permission or Do You Not Understand Creative Commons

Daily Online Activity:

Online Activity for 2008-09-19

Online Activity for 2008-09-20

Online Activity for 2008-09-21

Online Activity for 2008-09-22

Online Activity for 2008-09-23

Online Activity for 2008-09-24

Online Activity for 2008-09-25

Online Activity for 2008-09-26

Online Activity for 2008-09-27

Online Activity for 2008-09-29

Online Activity for 2008-09-30

Online Activity for 2008-10-01

]]> http://creeva.com/2008/10/03/creevacom-weeks-in-review-91908-10308/feed/ 0 http://creeva.com/2008/09/22/sad-day-for-free-speech-for-students/ http://creeva.com/2008/09/22/sad-day-for-free-speech-for-students/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:25:39 +0000 Creeva http://creeva.com/?p=3427

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Ars Technica is reporting that a school in Pennsyvania has suspended 2 students for creating a Myspace profile of their principal mocking him.  A federal judge upheld this ruling when they were sued by one of the students for suspending them for something they created on their own time outside of school.   Personally I find this disturbing on two fields.

The first I want to bring up is parody.  I’m not sure why they didn’t take the parody defense.   To their non-target audience I’m sure the language and style they used was reprehensible, and to the school district bordering in libel.   I however remember what it was like being a teenager, a time period that most adults don’t allow themselves to identify with once they age past it.  The key thing they need ot look at is the target audience.   It wouldn’t be truly fair to have a trial of teenagers to be judged by their “peers” and have the jury made up of people older then 25.   That seems to be the tipping point when the social norms of the next high school generation are lost on the adults.   The language is different.  The clothing is different.   The attitudes are different.  Unless a similar mindset can be understood by the jury, the teenager will loose almost every time in a “Damn kids don’t respect anything” moment.  I think parody would have been the correct defense.

Now let’s look at the freedom of speech angle.  There is quite a few that feel like I do that the traditional schooling these days is to extinguish individual thought and bring people around to “group think”.  We all have our moments when we feel group think is a good thing, most of that time is when group think agrees with what we are thinking.   However when a student has individual thought they seem to get punished.  About eight years ago my sister was almost suspended for going to school with pink hair.   The problem was that “it was a distraction” – really?  Life is all about distraction and things that block you from achieving your goals.   Work through it.   She (nor the boys in question from the beginning argument) hurt or threatened the life or welfare of those around them.   Even then it should be either handled by the police or if it happened in school, by the police and the school.

One of the arguments the defense used was that though the boys wrote the information outside of school, it was targeted at students in it.  Duh!  Almost the whole of their society is wrapped up in school.  They don’t really live work and interact within the community.  Their peer and focus groups are almost all inclusively within that school.  Of course it’s going to be their target audience.  The same way that writing an OP-Ed piece for the local community newspaper is targeted at that community.  It doesn’t matter if the person that wrote the piece technically lives outside the city borders, it’s still valid.  They are addressing their peer group.  What we have now is we are creating a society where it is considered to mock or question public figures.  If their are repercussions outside of the normal legal channels, students then gain a greater fear of authority then they should have.

Like work, there needs to be a seperation between a students personal lives and their work lives.   What I do on my own time is none of my works business.  When I am at work it is completely their business and I have to deal with anything that stems out of my decisions from there.   If this case was going after the libel or slander side of the coin, which is where it should have gone, it should not have been handled by removing the children from the school.  It should have been settled in the courts and outside of the venue of schools.   The biggest issue is while if I do something egregious outside of work that can have a negative effect on the company, I can get fired.  Schools however should not be allowed to fire or punish students on things that take place outside of their borders of jurisdiction, which end at the edge of school property.

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Just the other day I wrote about cloud computing versus SaS terminology.   A web application isn’t necessarily a cloud computing or SaS platform.   It can be one or the other, it can be both, it can be neither.   Now that, that is out of the way let’s move onto the meat.

I think that all web application developers would do well to look at WordPress and the product they offer as key points for their own designs.   Obviously I use WordPress as a blog, I also use it as a CMS, a middleware application system, a database, a word processor and other uses.   WordPress is extensible far beyond the original blog software it was designed to be.

The reason that WordPress is so transformative is the ability to use a fairly easy (well not for me but I suck at PHP and programming in general) API that the users can use to extend and transform the core product.  This is done through the use of plugins.   In theory the expandablity of WordPress would allow it to transform into any functional web application you can imagine.   I’m not saying this should be done however.   WordPress plugins a lot of times just add band-aids to a product to extend it further then the core company can imagine or support.

Think of your ticket support system.  Most of these are moving to a web based interface.  Easy to manage, no software to install on users computers, easily updated since you only have to update the core server – it’s a no brainer to move everything you can over to a web based centrally managed focus for a company.

Why can’t you extend it though?

Most of the web application companies MAY ALLOW YOU to go as far as put your company logo in the interface.  Allowing you to brand a product to some extent is not the same as extending the product.  I don’t want color changes.  I don’t want a simple image swap.  I want feature sets being implemented without waiting 18 months to have it done.  If you have a robust CRM application, in this modern time wouldn’t you want a spot to add a LinkedIn Profile section?  This would be as easy as allowing customers custom fields that they can rename on the back-end.   What about adding an image?  This would be a bit more difficult then a simple custom field, but still possible doable.  How about however a full blow plugin that looks up the LinkedIn contact info.

This is all hypothetical, but let’s say this is how the plugin would work in generic CRM system.

1.  User logged into the CRM would associate their own – or a corporation profile with Linkedin

2.  User plugins in new contacts e-mail address

3. User is prompted with “Would You Like to Request Connection on Linkedin?”

4.  If users states yes the plugin would go into a state of “Waiting for Remote User to Confirm”

5.  At this point the user could add in all the information they normally would in the CRM database

6.  Later the user would receive an confirmation (or decline) of linking up in LinkedIn

7. If the receive a confirmation they could then pull in the information to the CRM application.

8.  Then the CRM application would have connections and how they relate to each other in their database, home pages, Resumes, etc. – all from a couple clicks.

That is a scenario that would appeal to sales personnel.   Let’s look at something more urbane, a library look up system. A library lookup system is something very simple  and single tasked.  It works well and returns (normally) the following information:

• Title
• Author
• Subject
• Location
• If it’s in or checked out
• Sometimes a Summary
• Sometimes an Image

Now let’s look at methods we can use to extend this functionality.  The first thing I would make sure is there a public internet accessible site where either the general public, or the Library chooses just card members can access.  Library users are normally people that live in the same town and there are a good number of them that know each others.  What does that buy you?  Word of mouth.  What about a a secondary revenue stream outside of donations or overdue fines?  How can you leverage more people to show up at your fund raising drives?  I’m assuming these are question that library officials ask themselves.   How can we turn that simple search to find a book into something more?

Let’s give the users an option to use the search page as a social platform.  I would give the a users a choice of using the old style simple search functions, but also give them a chance to leverage the public you are serving to work with you instead of you working for them.

Let’s go over an imaginary social library platform.

1.  User opens up a search window into the library database and enters a query.

2. User gets back the title, author, and subject – then a link that states more information (this is where a plugin would take over)

3.  On the plugin page users could get back an image of they are searching.  They also see where it is located, if it’s in or not, and more.   What about a sidebar that allows them to purchase the book/movie/CD at Amazon?  Reviews from other library patrons?  A list of who checked out which book (make this opt-in only on a per title usage – don’t compromise a users privacy).  A listing of library events where the author is signing books, giving a reading, or there is a book discussion covering these topics?

You just made something that is infinitely more “sticky” and let’s the users interact with your site on a much larger scale then previously.  They are no longer browsing alone, but in a group, with people they know from town.

All of this is possible with a platform that allows plugins.  I’m not asking for web application developers to support any plugins directly.  If a plugin breaks or crashes the core site (shame on the user that puts an untested plugin in a production environment) – the web application developer should tell the user they will not support the product with any plugins running at all.   It doesn’t mean the framework, APIs, and access shouldn’t be there.

I’m pleading with web application developers that allow the users to have self hosted servers to please build this extensiability into their products.   I can hack around another platform and get these functions, but sometimes we just want to buy a program from a vendor with support.   Currently your making us choose between function or support.   It should not be that way.  Opening up can only gain customer loyalty in the long run.

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I was listening to the last weeks episode of Net@Night and they were complaining that the Twitter community has become fragmented.  This is true in the online world, as well as the offline world.  We are all not friends.  Sometimes I think what you read, listen to, watch, or have to say is utterly idiotic and reprehensible.   I’m sorry.   I do.   I also know that some of you think the same things about me, especially those that are completely fed up with me.

We call places like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.  social networks.  They are and they are not.  If you consider High School an experiment in social networking I guess they are social networks.   I prefer to think of them as “Social Platforms”.   These are sites and applications that allow you to be social, but you don’t have to be.   I enjoy going to a movie with someone else and don’t really enjoy going by myself.   That doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there that don’t enjoy going by themselves.   Some people join social networks for the games, some for the functions, and yes most for the social aspect and the ability to connect with people.

I’ve written before that I use different social platforms in different ways.  Some communities, like twitter, I take an active role and participate in, others I hang back and show up when I receive a comment on some piece of work I’ve commented on.   I just don’t have time to be a good community member and interact exclusively (or a lot) on the literally hundreds of social network sites I belong to.  Giving the lack of time in being able to deal with all of them, I write once and post everywhere.  I deal with comments and such.

I won’t add you to my friends list if I haven’t dealt with you in some sort of capacity.  I add you if I’ve met you through online gaming, real life meetings, or I’ve had some sort of conversation with you.   I won’t add you if you thought I look interesting and just want to chat (don’t worry I’m not requesting friendship form you if you look interesting either).   Heck I don’t even like some of the networks I’m a member of.  What does this mean though?

Does it mean I’m not networking socially?   I am and I’m not.   I’m hanging out with friends or exchanging ideas with people I know.   If your coming along for the ride, more power to you.  I’m not going to these just to meet you, some unknown person to me.   Until I know you I don’t want to network with you.

What does this mean in general?  I’ve pigeon holed myself into these social platforms.  I’ve become cliquish in a way that also existed in high school.   Just because I haven’t welcomed you with open arms doesn’t mean I refuse to get to know you, it just takes time.   This is what happens to the splintered groups amongst all of these social platforms.  They have their own secret hand shakes and communities that exist on the platform.   This is actually quite a good thing, this is how you fulfill the niche market.   One size doesn’t fit all.  I do believe your data and the data explicitly shared with you should be able to be moved to another platform, data should be open and you should be able to make your own decisions over the data and meta data you create.     Splintered communities online just show us the social model that we have in the real world can replicate and exist online.

Because online communities begin to form and evolve organically the same way they do in meat space, we know that they are real true communities.   They aren’t Utopian society love-ins.  Just because your friends with Bob and Jane and I’m friends with them doesn’t mean we have anything in common to talk about.  Personally I have issues with Bob and Jane on some things, what if those are the things that you have in commonality with them?  I would then hate you.   I don’t want to hate, but I don’t want to get to know you either.     That’s not a bad thing.  Like real life we need to get to know each other first.   You don’t give everyone on the street you meet your phone number – why would you add them to your friends list.

It’s not necessarily about hiding information from them.  There are a lot of people like myself who literally broadcast their information broadly and openly across the internet.   You really aren’t gaining too much beyond more access to direct communication to me by being on my friends list.   I think these leads us to rethink the idea of friend lists.

Now go friend me on every possible social network you find that has a Creeva.

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I have a profound fascination with cloud computing, internet computing, bamboozled processing (whatever you want to call it).  The problem when you start using these terms in the IT world it becomes “Software as a Service” (SaS) in some attempt to legitimatize the business model.   There is a distinct difference, however.   That difference is money.

“Cloud Computing” is still one of the ephemeral terms that no one is quite sure what it means.   It’s akin to the “Network Computer” model pushed out by Oracle in the mid 90′s – it’s all as hard to explain, ridiculed, ahead of it’s time, and understandable as the Network Computer was.  The idea of cloud computing means why you process your data locally through some window (Browser, Local PC) into the cloud (Internet), your data is stored in the cloud and accessible from anywhere.  Terms like Webmail have become keeping your email in the clouds – I like the concept but we are bringing back the 90′s terms about “thinking outside the box” with this type of labeling.   Social networks such as Myspace and Facebook are also considered to be cloud platforms, I assume this means because you can annoy your friends anywhere with applications invites – even if you’ve never met them in meat space.

Current definition essentially is if you are doing anything online except reading a static web page (library interaction in the clouds?) – is considered cloud computing.   Some people are referring to any of this same type of activity as SaS whe nit is in the IT realm.  It’s not, please change your wordings, understand what you are talking about, respect both the IT world and the non-IT world.  You are confusing people with concepts that are also completley non-explainable already.

SaS is much similar to cloud computing, much like a cheetah (SaS) is similar to a bobcat (cloud computing).  Both of the latter animals are members of the feline family and have similar body makeup, but we can also recognize that they are not the same and have vastly different feature sets.   A bobcat is also more common.  First I’ll say it, most SaS is boring.  It’s the kind of stuff you do at work.  Whether it’s Peachtree’s online application,  it’s the remote backup service and outsourced server monitoring your company purchases.   These are software packages your company can buy and manage but they’ve moved them off site and out of their direct control over the hardware.  It’s on the network and that’s all that matters.

SaS products come with service level agreements that guarantee up time and will compensate you for excessive (which is sometimes 15 minutes) of downtime.   I have yet to see a check from Twitter or Myspace, and I’m sure some users can show actual cause and effect of damage to their online businesses if their is an outage.   SaS is normally pretty niche, costs money, and replicates things you already do.

I pay for Flickr?  Does that mean it’s an SaS?  No it doesn’t, the Flickr “application” is free, what I am paying for is storage space and a small number of features – not the application.  The same goes with Google Apps and Smugmug.  If it’s a consumer grade product it’s still a cloud computing application.  When we move into things like Microsoft offering remote hosted MS Exchange packages, we are entering into SaS.

There was an article on mashable today questioning if ping.fm and hellotxt were helping the web world or hurting it.  I understand the authors point that if you are using these services that you are not taking an interest and active use in the social community that you are using these services to post to.   I can say from hits for ping.fm beta code requests on my blog, that lots of people are interested in getting access to ping.fm.   Now that it’s out of private beta I’m sure I’ll lose my number one spot in google for the term “ping.fm beta code”.  

If people want this what does this say?  It really means that we have diverse friendships.  We have communities that we want to share information with.   We don’t have time to manually copy or paste, nor do we have the time to try convince everyone we know to use a single service.   Since we can’t bring our friends to the service (much to the dismay of the social network providers), we take our information to them. 

We want to share our information, we don’t want to hoard.  I for example do all my writing on my main blog, twitter, and handful of other services.   Yet I have friends on almost every little social network out there.   Why should I be forced to chose between friends and the information I share with them.   Yes I’m sure some actual readers that are not into crossposting get annoyed over the repeated information on multiple services.   What about my friends though?   Where does the line of a healthy blogging business end and friendship cross?  My friends are the ones that inspire, the will always have the information directed towards them.    I am more then willing to take my information to them.   At what cost, a minor annoyance to literally a handful?

No one is forced to read my messages.   No one is forced to follow me.   No one is forced to my site.  If the author doesn’t follow ping.fm links, so be it.   I’m not losing what I truly care about.   Maybe when the a single network has all the features I want and 99.9% market dominance – then I’ll stop cross posting.   Until that time I’m proud to be a crossposter.

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Between setting up the blogs, playing the Myspace game Heroes, and tracking down alumni for band on Facebook and Myspace, I’ve spent a huge chunk of time on the social networking sites of the top tier.   (If there are any alumni on secondary tiered social networks I will find you eventually.)  Traditionally I have always held a strong hatred towards Myspace particularly.   My most commented line about the site has been “Myspace, making the Web 2.0 looklike the web from 1996).   Myspace has gotten better, but it is still downright ugly, clunky, and mostly a walled garden.   I don’t like – and no recent usage hasn’t endeared me to it.

I now have about 8 pages of email communication in Myspace (2 pages in Facebook) – that I have no method of saving, archiving, and retaining.   Do you know how much I hate that?  I’m someone who wants to save all his data forever, and thanks to the walled garden scenario it’s trapped.   Maybe I’ll get lucky and it will eventually be freed.

On the plus side my blog has been getting more hits, so I can’t complain about that.  Exposure the whole yadda yadda about getting yourself out there, I’m doing it.   I have been doing it for awhile but lately actually actively doing it.

We’ll see, maybe Myspace will still self impload and take out the west coast.  If it takes out the whole west coast we will know never to make such a monstrosity again.

I’ve done the community band circuit for a year now and I’ve played with two community bands.  The one thing I have noticed is that the bands don’t really seem to be growing.  When they do grow it’s usually by an older member decides to join in the band.  The youth market seems to be completely disenfranchised.   I can understand part of that, though I declined to the join the VCMA when it was first formed due to not liking the director.   It wasn’t because I didn’t want to play, I still had the yearly Vermilion Alumni Band to play in, then I moved to Oregon.   While there I hardly ever pulled out my trumpet and when I did it was just for a half hour stint every few months.   My lips didn’t have the range or stamina they once did.   After blowing out my lip the last couple years at Alumni after moving back to Ohio, I decided I need to bring more regular playing in my life.  This led me to community band.  Since I am young(er) I have a different perspective on the band.

The first thing is that the music (at least over the summer) is extremely heavily weighted to music written before I was born.   If we play anything done after I was born it was an arrangement of a pre-existing piece.  I hear the director say things like, “we’ll play this piece because everyone will know it”.   Most of the time this is said, I neither know it, nor do I recognize the melody.  I feel attached and not a part of something I can recognize.  This is not to say that I think the old music should be ignored, no matter how much I dislike traditional marches.  I think we should play a wider variety of music that encompasses all eras.  Young people that really aren’t in to band music should have something that is recognizable to them and not just something that there parents kind of remember or their grandparents danced to on their first date.    There needs to be a mixture.   A mixture that should appeal to all those involved.

Rules I would follow to achieve this if I was choosing the music:

1.  Choose at least one movie/television theme song- preferably something recognizable to all ages.   While we are playing Moonriver in the VCMA and I adore, it is not something that the majority of under-forty crowd would recognize.  I think you would have to go to the over fifty crowd to truly appreciate and remember it.  My wife said she would forever be in love and be inspired to work harder at learning an instrument if she hears The Muppet Show Theme Song.  My personal favorite is video game theme music, something as traditional as The Legend of Zelda Theme Song or a number from the Final Fantasy series.   There is a national company that tours and just does live concerts on video game music, it sells out pretty quickly.  These types of concerts have a great deal of appeal to the under forty crowd and that should be taken into consideration.

Some TV themes I would like to hear:

• Batman the Animated Series Theme
• The Muppet Show Theme
• The A-Team Theme
• The Adam’s Family
• The Star Trek Theme
• Farscape Theme
• Benny Hill Theme
• Monty Python’s Circus Theme
• Futurama Theme
• The Incredible Hulk Theme
• Inspector Gadget Theme
• Macgyver Theme
• Mission Impossible Theme
• Quantum Leap Theme
• Bonanza Theme
• Scooby Doo Theme
• Twilight Zone Theme
• X-Files

Movie Themes I would like to hear:

• Anything by John Williams
• Anything by James Horner
• Harry Potter
• Anything large movie made in the last 20 years.

2.  Choose at least one pop arrangement – the VCMA did the Beatles and this would fit into this category.  The real problem with pop music is that so little of it actually sounds good for a concert band.   The fifties and sixties popular songs actually sound the best, though there are a few later pieces that sound quite good also.

3.  Choose one classical piece that easily recognized, so far in neither of my community bands have we tackled any classical music.  We have done some “traditional” pieces, but nothing classical.   Where is the Bach, Beethoven, or Chopin?  There is an abundance of this that has been arranged for concert bands, but the bands I belong to seem to overlook anything pre 1880 and post 1960.  Christmas music doesn’t really fall under “classical”

Out of these 3 areas community bands should be able to play one piece from each of these genre’s through out there year of performing.  I’m not saying it has to follow that one of each of these pieces get played every concert, but out the forty or so pieces I have played in both bands, they should be able to accommodate one of each of these in their play rotation.

There are other rules I would follow also.

4.  No more then 20 percent of your music can come from any decade.  If it was all arranged in the eighties, that’s fine but the melodies and original music was composed according to this guideline.   I’m not going to pick on arrangers for doing a modern arrangement of In the Mood, its swing era song.   With this rule you could also still fit in easily a whole concert and still have music written from before I was born.

5.  No more then 40% from any single genre.  Whether this is marches, swing, classical, theme music, etc., etc. – variety makes more people take notice unless you’re doing a theme concert.

6. Theme concerts (usually X-mas concerts for community bands) – In a theme concert you should play a maximum of 80% of the music that follows the theme.   One or two pieces should be reserved for something unexpected and interesting that doesn’t fit the norm of a particular theme.  Whether this is a Christmas march or a summer playing of Sleigh Ride, the unexpected brings peoples attention by breaking monotony.

7.  While conductors normally choose the music in most circumstances, there should be one or two pieces chosen by the band members themselves to work through and play.   These people are there to have fun, play something they really want to play.

8.  Encourage your members to compose or arrange something for your band to play.  This makes the music all their own and gives your band something special.

That covers my notes from music selection.   So how do you attract new members?   Other then people moving into the community or the rare person finding out about you and showing up, there is little in the means of growth.  Community bands are competing with the Internet, Social Networking, video games, hanging out with friends, going to the bar, or clubbing.   Having lived through my twenties already most of these are more fun at that age then community band.  You need to hook members while they are still young.

I’ve always played for the love of playing.  I really started when I was a sophomore in high school, by my junior year you couldn’t keep me from auditioning or volunteering to play for whatever group was available.  This alone helped me grow into a much better musician.  I used to be able to transpose music from the key of C or the Key of F in my head automatically and play along from that sheet music.   My range and stamina were much better then they are still today.   My technique today is better in a lot of ways, but I feel I was a better player in a larger scope back then.  That was after only a year of playing back then, I have some of that memory still in my head and I’m old enough to have gained wisdom.  My knowledge should have grown.   After my single year of college I stopped playing with any group outside of Alumni band.  It wasn’t out of disinterest as much as effort.   If I didn’t love playing I wouldn’t stay with the community band, there is no one in my peer group and for a large part of it it’s not really “fun”, at least not in the sense it was fun back when I was in high school.

Most players fall off because they are not engaged early enough into the community band cycle.  To give an example what non engagement with playing can do, for alumni band out of the 160 of us that went through 3 years together, only 5 showed up last year to Alumni Band, only two of us regularly play now.  That’s hovering around a 1-2% rate of a player likely to stick with their instrument after school form my personal experience.  Almost all community bands explicitly state that will accept members that are in high school with their band director’s permission.   Now while I would have gladly played with a community band when I was in high school I was not going to go up and have Mr. Henry sign a permission slip or call to ask if I could join the band.   This is a turn off.   What should happen is that community band should be actively engaging the high school and middle school band directors for members every single year.  If community band members are worried about middle schoolers, then they should make a junior community band where the regular band can show up if they so choose and the younger players can show up.

Younger players are looking for people to emulate, to try to sound like.  Having mentoring by accepting is only going to raise their skill level.   Players that show up are not getting school credit, they are not getting paid, and so why have any stipulations.   If the music is too hard for them they are not going to stick around.   If they don’t really enjoy playing and are only in the school for socialization or the fun from that they are not going to show up.   If community bands are there to make its own members better, then the younger the better, they can make the band as a whole be better.  The older players get the benefit of mild teaching and understanding of what they are doing and the younger players gain a mentor.

Once the younger players are hooked they are more likely to stick with music, since they then have a place to play after they graduate.  They will be informed about the community band and will be regular members.   If they are anything like I was they will find a great relief about having some place to play over the summer.  Older members may even make a little bit of side cash by giving lessons, even if they aren’t as good as a true instructor they could still impart wisdom and teach a student to the edge of their abilities, at which point the student could move onto someone else. My high school self could play rings around my present self. I think community bands under estimate the skill levels of these players.

Is there a strong future for community bands?  It depends.   The older generations need to realize that playing in band is not “cool” at least not until your in your thirties, and I still get the occasional snicker about it – I just don’t care.  A community band is considered a tired thing by the younger generation who would prefer most of their live music to contain electric guitars.  The ability to evolve and bring new members in is essential for most community bands to last another twenty years.   Showing players it can be fun by playing music they can identify with and accepting them as peers within their membership.  You could still have a stipulation where the younger members couldn’t vote in elections, I’m sure you wouldn’t want your board run by four sixteen year olds – but having one of them in a position with a voice may give you greater possibilities then someone like me who is already twice that age and out of touch.

I’ve gotten the VCMA website in a stable place.  I can quickly edit it and make changes, so before any radical redesigns I’m now working on moving them over to Google Apps for internal paperwork.  I plan in the near future signing the VCMA up for a Myspace page and a Facebook account.  People in the younger peer group will be able to see it as an organization to identify with.  The older members need to realize why they started a community to begin with, which includes – hanging out with friends, playing for people, becoming better musicians, and having fun.  None of what I have written breaks any of that.  It may take them a little bit out of their comfort zone, but the mantra of business these days is to embrace and extend.   Growth happens once some of these things are followed.  If the bands I play with don’t start embracing this I’m not sure they will last another twenty years and things will get shaky in another ten.   Growth has not continued, but rather it has stagnated, unless there is something done to counter-act this, the downward trend will continue.

In my band I’m still considered just a kid, though my father had his fourth child by my age.   I’m too young to them to be anything but a kid so what do I know.  I’m too old for any of the young people to truly listen to me, plus I’m over thirty so I’m to young to be trusted.  If we go by Cory Doctorow’s book Little Brother – they don’t trust anyone over 22.   Somehow I’m stuck in the adult version of the tweens.  So no one will truly pay attention, but that doesn’t mean this shouldn’t be said.

Picture from here

]]> http://creeva.com/2008/08/23/is-there-a-strong-future-for-community-bands/feed/ 7 http://creeva.com/2008/08/22/creevacom-week-in-review-81508-82208/ http://creeva.com/2008/08/22/creevacom-week-in-review-81508-82208/#comments Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:52:13 +0000 Creeva http://creeva.com/?p=3129

This week has been a crazy one. Here is what has been published.

Articles:

Bill Nye The Science Guy is Coming Back – I always enjoyed Bill Nye The Science Guy.

The Second Day of Kindergarten – Heart break and scheming

Week One of My New GTD Strategy is Over – The success rate is a debate

County Fair, after County Fair, after County Fair – Many trips scheduled

Will Social Networks Lead to Political Revenge? – Wondering what happens when the next generation gets into power

Utter Frustration and Writers Block – General rant on not writing

How I Changed The Channel At Grandpa’s House – A child finds a flaw in the system.  As one comment pointed out I hacked my grandfather.

Competitive Training is Not an Excuse for Sending Kids to Public Schools – A rant against someone who thinks everyone should go to public schools to be truly competitive

My Obsession With Capes – A short fun little post

The Time I Thought I Was Related to Spider-Man – Sadly I truly am not

New Look For The Blog – Announcing the new theme

VCMA Concert Tonight

- I need to write the follow up

I Admit it, I Liked Archie Comics Growing Up – I’m weird.  I know.

Twitter Updates:

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-15

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-16

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-18

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-19

Twitter Updates for 2008-08-20

Daily Activity Summaries:

Daily Digest for 2008-08-21 – starting yesterday I’m gonig to be posting a daily post of all my online activity – my lifestream day by day in a post.   I hope you enjoy.

Picture from here

Yesterday I wandered into a forum that contains random population members from my ex-hometown.  There was a thread about the teacher strike going on in town.  I don’t really self promote by going and saying hey read my site here and there around the net, but I did leave a post in the thread stating:

I rarely post here – rarely read it also – but today boredom struck  – I agree with the parent of this thread – ironically a few weeks ago I actually wrote on my blog on this subject here: http://creeva.com/2008/07/28/teachers-on-strike-in-my-hometown/

That aside – I’ll be very happen when teaching becomes a non-union position.

Though it was in general to a thread a user named Homersazdoh wrote this:

Where do you people get off thinking all the teachers are members of the peace corp.?  They have every right to try and get more money just like everyone else.  If you’re so concerned with the quality of teacher, then you want the best package to draw the best talent.

My next response was:

The problem is under a contract scenario with unions or large groups of employees you need to pander to the lowest common denominator – this means that better teachers are going to make less because the large number of average or below average teachers will bring them down.

But I’ve recently had siblings go through the vermilion school system (some still going, I graduated in ’94) – over time the quality has only gotten worse, the education is not as werll rounded due to block scheduling, more and more restrictions on individuality, and the lack of money being poured into the system that has nothing to do with teacher wages.

Oh well, I’ll drop out of this conversation, my child is probably going to be home schooled.

This is what I got from Scott:

Now of course I wasn’t going to let that by, but I excused myself from the thread with this:

Be careful – my wife is home schooled – I’m a college fail out/drop out – yet I’m in an extremely competitive white collar career.

My child will always be challenged – the common misconctption that’s I’ve always fought for public schooling is socialization – I never found it competitive nor strived to be more competive – I’m a member of a few social and group organizations.

BUt believe what you want – and thank you for derailing the conversation any further – I apologize to everyone for my detour I helped on this thread – I’ll drop out.

BTW – I don’t care either way the teachers strike and union goes -I’m not a vermilion resident – I moved out in 2001 – I won’t move back but I have friends and family there – I’m friends wiht a couple teachers there, and I’m a member of vermilion community organizations.

Now why did I give you this?  I figured I would give you some back story to what inspired this post.  Xie and I have had many disagreements about public schools versus home schooling, she wasn’t always homeschooled so she has the advantage of first hand experience on both sides of the coin.   She is also one of the most intelligent (and quiet) people I know.   I had a good experience with public schools, she did not.

However with the random inspections, school uniforms, the crushing of individuality, and the loss of personal liberties that kids go through today to “make them better citizens” and to “keep them safe”, has made me think twice on sending my child to public schools.   My argument in the past was the social aspect and the ability work with and meet people.   The competiviness of school was never a selling point for me.   Heck the overly competitive people were the ones that made my life hell in school and were the super jocks, the bullies that had something to prove, or the grade whores who thought straight A’s would give them the good life when they graduated.

I wasn’t a straight A student, nor did I try to be.   When I was in elementary school I was on the honor role and merit role all the time, so what?  My parents then changed schools on me and I then almost failed fifth grade.  My wife says I don’t respond well to change and I’m better with routine.  This is obvious when I went from good grades in a competitive private school moving to a sub par public school.  I should have excelled from an academic perspective, but I didn’t.   I was a fish out of water.

The same thing happened two years later when we moved to Vermilion.  At one point my father stated the best thing he could at me to alleviate my stress and to ease his concern of his son failing a grade.  He said that he would be fine if I was a C student.  This was all I needed to alleviate the strain.  I high school I only failed two classes, Spanish 1 and Algebra 2.  I did maintain a C average throughout school.   I was so much a C student that I graduated around 100th in a class of 250ish.  This didn’t stop me from going anywhere.   I managed to get into a good private college (which I then proceeded to fail out, but that was from lack of wanting to go to class).

Was I really a C student?  Not really.  I could have easily made honor roll, I just didn’t like homework.  I scored in the top 10% in the nation on my ACTs and in the top 1% on my PRE-SATs, I’m sure this helped me to get in college.   I just wanted to take the tests to prove I knew what I was talking about, the busy work held no interest for me.  The only competition I really participated in school was who could hit the highest trumpet note.

Now I have a good job.   There are articles kicking around the Internet about why going college is a waste of time and money these days.   I don’t feel I’ve lost out on an education.  Life is about learning and loving to learn.   To build upon what you have learned already and never stop growing.  Why would I put my child in the bad aspects of that, pointing out that my child would not be competitive because he may not go to public school is moronic.   Also when I saw the college valedictorian delivering pizzas when I was making 35k a year 9 years ago made a big impact on me.

I think that traditional schooling leads to more socialization and more social activities then traditional schooling, however saying I need to send my kid to traditional schooling for him to remain competitive?  That’s moronic.

Picture from here

Picture from here

Yesterday I saw and article about Barack Obama being the new number one person on Twitter.  If you don’t know what Twitter is, I don’t know how you managed to find my blog, but beyond that it’s a micro blogging site.  I’ve been on twitter for awhile now and I enjoy it, different people get different things out of it.

I was thinking about it this morning though, at what point is there going to be repurcussions from social network friends and followers.  I’m not talking about a senator tweeting “Out with the mistress for a hot time” and the press finding out about it (though in twenty years I can see that escaping the “Facebook Congress Edition” website.   I’m tlaking about Barack getting number one.   I know that NASA has multiple twitter accounts, do they follow Barack?  If they don’t what if Barack is really into Twitter, is he going to remember that NASA didn’t follow him and adjust their budget accordingly.  What about the Burea of Indian Affairs, are they his Facebook friend?

While this is all seems kind of silly now, it won’t necessarily be so in the future.   In twenty to thirty years the kids and teenagers of today that live and die by their online social networks are going ot be running for office.   Will their attention span be as short?  Will they be ones that think social networks are social networking in general is so important that they will remember who their friends were before their the election and act accordingly.   This is just pondering, but I am curious

It seems that hi5 doesn’t use the same friend finding connections method that other sites do.   Because of this I accidently spammed over 700 invites to people that I know personal and professional.  I’m not going to send out another e-mail as a retraction.  It still is a pain in the ass.

Normal social network searches your contacts list and finds people that you know already on the service.  This is all fine and dandy.   Then when you click ok it then lists your friends not on the service and wants to know if you want to invite them.  At this point on all other services I click no.   Hi5 however hid what is normally the second page option down at the bottom of the screen and then proceeded to spam everyone on my contacts list.

I feel like an idiot – but live and learn.

Picture from here

In the last year I’ve started rolling in more of my high school, college, and for lack fo a better description “real life mundane” friends into my online social profiles.   Mostly in the past I’ve kept it down to current co-workers and friends I was an actively engaged with and friends from the online video games I used to play.  On the surface there is a simple reason for this, most people from high school I didn’t like.  I don’t need to play the “hey great to see you, what are you up to, why have we never talked since high school discussion”.  They seem to forget that we didn’t talk when we were in high school.

Now I have friends from elementary school in my Myspace and Facebook friends list.   Last night my college room mate (and other college friends) showed up on facebook finally.   My college room mate had managed to stay very quiet for well over a decade online and I hadn’t been able to track him down.  I’m still waiting for him to actually accept my friend invitation, but as far as I know we didn’t leave on bad terms.

I wrote the other day about being grown up, everyone is now old married, has kids…the whole gambit.   I wonder if they all feel as young as I do and still feel the same as I did in my early twenties.  Maybe they do.

Image from here

Where can you post by E-mail?  Well this is the easiest of crossposting methods (especially if you use Blogger).  There are lots of plugins for wordpress or movable type that can send out your full post as an e-mail to another address.   In most cases you would send this to your own e-mail address so you had it for reference.  What about sending it to another site entirely?  What if that site could send it to another site?  You can see how this chain can work.   If you are using Blogger then you can send out your post to ten e-mail addresses.   This means that your post can replicate like bunnies.   What are some of the sites that can receive e-mail posts?  Let’s get into that.

The original Creeva’s World was hosted on Blogger at creeva.blogspot.com.  This is where I started writing and I didn’t want to abandon it after migrating over to wordpress.  This was the very first site I crossposted to from my wordpress blog.  Crossposting allowed me to not abandon my site and any readers that may go to that address, but I could enhance my own experience while keeping theirs the same.

Lifelogger is the “cooler” blogging service, at least that’s what they say.   I’m not going to use any blogging platform again that I can’t customize to the fullest extent.  WordPress has spoiled me.   Though I do maintain a site there.

Unlike some major social networks (I’m looking at you Facebook and Myspace), Friendster does support e-mailing in your blog messages.

Blogr is just another blogging host that accepts e-mail.  Very blogger like, but crossposting friendly.

Evernote is unique unlock some of the rest of these sites, Evernote is a notebook service.   It allows you to e-mail in snippets (or use the desktop applications) to send in information that you can then share with your friends.  You can e-mail in text notes, audio, or video.

Busy Thumbs is a simple moblog site that accepts posts via e-mail.

Twine is similar to Evernote, but it’s about collections and community.   Think of it as sharing what you have with your friends.

Google Groups is a spot that I used to use as an online backup for my blog.   I have a private google group that only handles my own blog posts.   No you can’t join, not like you would want to.

I’ve just recently start crossposting to an old Yahoo Group that I used to moderate.   Mostly this is because I can share my thoughts with my friends that are still in that group, but that group is essentially dead.   So this is the only thing that it’s around for to keep me from pulling the complete axe on it.

Each Day is designed to handle your memories and save them so you can go back over your life.  It handles multiple media formats but all I’m concerned about is the e-mail option.

Multiply is a social network in the same vein as Friendster, Myspace, and Facebook.

Over at Vox I maintain a page to integrate with their community.  I’ve posted in the past how vox is a unique community and because of that I receive unique feedback.   They refer to their e-mail inbound service as moblogging.

I like to think of all of my blog posts as separate documents.   After working on this for awhile, I decided to start e-mailing all of my entries to my google docs account let’s me to search and repurpose documents a little easier then searching through the blog.   It’s my dump all account for documents.  I am annoyed that I can’t e-mail blog posts to Zoho Writer for redundancy, they only take documents as attachments.

When you are looking for a new site to crosspost to check and see if they have an option where you can post by e-mail.  Some sites may refer to this as moblogging.  Also remember to e-mail your post to yourself so you have a backup you can control.

Oh, I use the DJ E-Mail Publish plugin to push out posts from WordPress.

In the next part of our crossposting god series we are going to cover Blogger more in depth.

Previous Entries in The Crossposting God Series:

The Crossposting God Series Part 1 – The Introduction

The Crossposting God Series Part 2 – Vox

The Crossposting God Series Part 3 – Live Journal and Derivative Sites

The Crossposting God Series Part 4 – Entry, Distribution, and End Points

The Crossposting God Series Part 5 – Myspace

The Crossposting God Series Part 6 – RSS Feeds to Crosspost

There is a group of six of us that exchange multiple e-mails on a daily basis.   I removed myself from the Internet for a couple days last week, and the last message I left on twitter was the fact I was at the hospital ( a family member was getting a procedure).   When I finally managed to get back to the real world (meaning my online life :P ) and catching up with email this is the thread I waded through (alternating between bold and italic to denote each email):

And I checked Brent’s twitter, and he was in the hospital yesterday…. I hope everything is ok.

Holy Moly……any idea what for?

He’s hasn’t Twitted since the one yesterday

http://twitter.com/creeva

Can he get his email on his phone?  Or IM?  I don’t have his cell number…..

I hope he is ok

As a big Adam Sandler fan, I cracked up at this post:

tweet, tweet, tweet, all day long, tweet, tweet, tweet as I sing this song. Shampoo is better – no conditioner is better

Isn’t that kind of the point of Twitter – some one get a hold of him!

Twitter is for him to update only.  We cant’ post to his account….

I hope everything is ok too…

And damn him for actually showing some sort of use for internet social networking !!!!

CREEEEEEEEVAAAAAA !!!!
/shake fist in air

I do enjoy that I have shown them the actual point of social networking.   There were more emails but most of those concern tracking down my contact info (beyond e-mail) and a theory that the whole thing was a hoax.   I am glad some of my real friends actually read my twitter messages (says I’m not speaking to just bots), but what does this say for social networking?  I forgot to update a bit more detail so friends worried.  I also should have told the people I’m in constant digital contact with a warning that I was going MIA for awhile.

For those wondering since I’ve stated before that I don’t use SMS with twitter, what I did use was Jott to act as an intermediary.  I called Jott up and then it transcribed my voice messages into tweets.  A perfect scenario for someone who never uses all of his minutes.

Let this be a lesson to all of you – make sure people understand your tweets to some degree otherwise your causing undo worry to your digital life.