Clark's Spot

My family has researched a lot of our ancestry during the past few years. I’ve worked on a project to record, photograph, and map the graves of ancestors. My parents have been a big help with this, and they’ve driven many miles of Ohio and Indiana roads with their GPS to get the exact locations of graves.

My parents visited two more cemeteries in the Cincinnati area about a month ago. With the information they collected there, I’ve updated the map, which is included in this post. (If the plugin doesn’t work properly, try to view the map here.)

View

Clarkspot Ancestor Graves in a larger map

For more information on my family’s history, visit my genealogy section.

I had too much fun writing this review for my profile on Goodreads. (I read it as part of my research for my PC for my graduate degree.) I just had to cross-post it here as well. Check out my review below, the cluetrain website, and the book.

Expanding on their website launched in 1999 (actually, expanding on the book published that expanded on the website), the four authors add additional commentary to their original work(s) and review how the Internet has changed business.

There are some good nuggets aboard this train.

First, you have to get past the voices. Oh, the writers are very proud of their voices. They explain how humanity hid its voices for The Corporation. They explain how the Web will free voices – has freed voices – and how if you don’t find A Voice and talk in A Voice, then your business will fail.

Perhaps they’re making up for lost time for their many years of hiding their voices. The voices must be stretched to check for their limits – the same way a 42-year-old at his college reunion tries to tailgate the same way he did as a senior.

You must also get through the tone, which can rail against business the same way a jilted lover proclaims all the failures of his or her beloved.

At times, the authors strike a tone similar to teenagers who sneaked into the office, turned on the P.A. system, and barricaded the doors – determined to have as much fun as they can squeeze into their minutes in the Sun.

That said, I’m convinced that markets are conversations. I’m convinced that conversations sound humans, and that ignoring those conversations means missing opportunities. I’m convinced that hyperlinks mean that networks can be as powerful as hierarchies within organizations. That smart companies can connect conversations that occur inside and outside the corporate firewall. That one of the changes wrought by the Internet and the World Wide Web is the lack of scarcity. That this abundance and this connectedness offer unique possibilities and challenges for all of the “people of Earth” – business and market.

So don’t misread my warning about voice and tone. Set those aside as you read it. This book offers four viewpoints (eight, now, with the new chapters and forward) of how to use the power of the Web to listen and to speak with your customers.

Bloggers are snarky. The writers snipe anonymously at one another. But aren’t blogs just another way of producing content for the web? Can you take the format, the writing style – but change the tone – and use it in the corporate world?

That’s the question I’m looking at for my cumulative project for my graduate degree.

As part of my research, I’ve been reading Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg. Most of today was filled with typing and transcribing handwritten notes as I’ve made my way through the chapters throughout September. The great thing for my research – and for you, if you’re interested in blogging on behalf of an organization? Say Everything is a great resource, and it’s led me to a few other articles, books, and blog posts as part of my research.

Earlier today, I tracked down information about the cluetrain manifesto, Robert Scoble’s advice on bizblogging, and Clay Shirky’s essay Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality. Take a few minutes to review them.

Twitter has two advantages over Facebook and other social networking sites. The open set-up makes it easier to follow people who you don’t know. This builds weak ties and grows your network further outside your social circle than you would normally look. Secondly, the hashtag system makes it easier to track updates from events and to connect with individuals through those events.

This focuses on the second point. I’ll follow up on the loose ties in a later post.

Hashtags bring some order to the large number of posts in the Twitterverse. Remember, my simplified view of Twitter is a giant chatroom where you are trying to get your message through the din. Your task is to figure out who you want to get and receive direct messages from. Hashtags help you sort through that noise if you’re interested in a specific topic. It lets you see a sign in the chatroom that your topic is being discussed in a certain corner, and you can go to that corner to hear everyone else espouse their thoughts on your topic.

Say that you’re interested in the annual Comic-Con show. #comiccon lets you track what other folks are saying about the show. You see where other people are spending their time at the show. It makes it easier to meet more people in real life who share your interests – which spreads your network and influence. And your more powerful network is much better than a few new followers.

That means the real world component of hashtags is important. If #you write sentences just to #include #metadata, you help #computers – not #people. Tags should be rare and should be unobtrusive. Take a look at Dave Coustan’s post. I’m not sure that I’d unfollow, but I like his comparisson to the NPR piece. They shouldn’t interfere with your ability to read the post.

Help sort – but don’t go overboard. Take a look at the directory on hashtags.org to see how out-of-control it can get. Hashtags remain an advantage for Twitter only as long as they don’t get in the way of the conversation AND they build loose ties.