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I’ve just received the approval for Google’s AdSense Program. I finished reading
their legal agreements, which for some reason reminded me of the first 2 rules of
Fight Club. And after a few clicks, and some javascript pasting…voila! So for those
of you seeing the site, and not reading through some sort of aggregator, down the
left you’ll see the difference. I’m not exactly sure how beneficial for me or how
it will turn out but we’ll see wont we. But why should I add advertising? There
are a few of reasons:

1. Why not?
2. Why not ( ah, fight club )?
3. I had the space for it.

It’s a win-win when it comes to the money part. It’s free for me, and could
translate into dollars in the pocket. After all, I pay good coin for my hosting,
and this will help towards it.

So click away my friend, click away!

Hmmm, maybe all these internet networking portals could have down falls? Maybe I
should re-evaluate my little “digital networking” experiment? Christopher Allen,
at Life with Alacrity,
is warning us all about the hazards to internet networking
and how when it gets to be too large, how can we actually keep up with it? I believe,
it comes down to a great point about quality vs. quantity.

Our current breed of social networking services have focused on amplifying our
contacts not only because it serves us, but because it serves them. The more
contacts that you make, the more people they potentially have in their service.
However, in the long run this is unsustainable — a social networking service also
has to be useful — merely amplifying your contacts isn’t enough.

Also I believe that the digital network from what I’m seeing has an impersonal
element to it. And for me the personal connection is really what makes the
connection tick. I guess that give’s MeetUp an star in my book, for trying to
use the digital to enhance the tangible.

Note: from this there was mention of Spoke,
so I’m adding it to my networking links, to give a try

It just makes sense. It’s honest. If only everything was like this.

Back in my post Crying With Purpose I found that with the exercise Steve had
discussed, the message of purpose that got to me was:

To be at home with my head in the clouds and music in my heart.

But after almost a month of thought, I’m stuck with one simple question. What
the @$#! does that mean? I mean, why couldn’t I have shed some tears over
something that made more sense! I’m sure with some more work I can translate this
into something, but for now I’m completely at a loss.

Arghhh! It’s just one of those day’s where nothing you do seems to work. Everything I try backfires or I get “error”. Deep breath and walk away. Yeah, walking away is sometimes exactly what we need. And I need it.

On the note of backyards
check this one. Be sure to check out the Directors portfolios.

In my walk away, I came across this. 100% Flash Magazines Nice!

After reading the Massive Change
site, I woke up to some interesting thoughts about society. I shared one on the
site about Social Architecture
and my other one is this.

• Native myth and folklore teach values like communication and community
• Greek mythology teaches things like free will and astrology
• Viking stories teach values like exploration and battles

Now look at their societies.

If you look at these cultures, all of their core values are ingrained in their
myths and stories. The largest religious revolution has one of the greatest
collection of stories, The Bible.

Take a loot at the United States. What are their myths and legends? Independence
Day, The Civil War, The Wild West, all of these collection of stories are based
around the fight to choose, the fight for freedom, the fight for money, the fight
for oneself. It’s no wonder that it reflect in their social culture.

Now how about Canada. What about us? Look at our Greatest Canadians.
I see inventors, Socialists, Athletes. I think of things like the Montreal Expo. I
think of stories like the underground railroad. Where did that lead to? Canada.
Now look at our social culture in comparison.

Now it’s the chicken and the egg thought. Do we choose these myths and legends
because of our society, or is our society driven by these stories. I say that if
we can introduce the right hero’s, the right legends and the right myths into our
society we can effectively make change to its values.

What are your myths?

Got my recent iconoculture
in the mail. They had a piece about thinknets: cyber communities of thinktanks.
In particular it referenced Massive Change
which is striving to be one of these. Their forum
has some interesting topics. I don’t think it’s at the super “thinktank” level
yet, like the conscious city or anything like that, but it has good potential.
I’m keeping a watch on it. Maybe make a post or 2.

Now this is a great remix of “Singin’ In The Rain“, yet another example of great Volkswagen ads.

O.k. So I’ve gone through the process of adding the links to my “Networking” section, on the left side. I’ve signed up to 3 different sites and I’ve been playing with how they work and what can be done.

• Ecademy – Seems to be chalker block full of features and additions. You’ve got blogs and message boards, meetings and clubs but only if you can afford it. I’m still looking through it, but so far, nothing for the broke ( which is me ).
• LinkedIn – It’s a friendster for business. You can search profiles, groups, experiences, business industries, anything that the users put up. And another bonus, it’s free. I’m connected to 1 person so far, woohoo!
• MeetUp – This site’s purpose is a little different. Like LinkedIn, it’s free. They’ve got a small twist, its goal is to create physical networks. Sure they’ve got a message board but their strive is to make the face to face connections, which is scary but I think can be very beneficial. I’ve got my first meetup on Feb 10.

Ultimately like real networking, it’s something that takes time an patience, so one week isn’t going to get me huge results. I’ll check in from time to time to let you know how the network grows.