Authenticity Accessed Or Acquired? Re-write

It should be our intention to strive for authenticity when defining and presenting ourselves or our life's endeavors . The writings of Finn McKenty, who blogs at Lightheavyweight inform us that design also has authenticity as a purpose.

Finn McKenty extends the concern regarding authenticity to endeavors of social-engagement. Specifically using the example of the Greener Grass project, which is about connecting people with ideas designed to have a positive impact.

The source of insight that he sought was John Moore from Brand Autopsy , who provided the original link for this post on Authenticity .

Finn asks John asks a few questions in a short interview about the of role "authenticity" in branding which you can read here ...snippets below.

Greener Grass: Can authenticity be created? If so, how can companies build a culture that values authenticity, transparency and honesty?

John Moore:

"This belief that authenticity can be created is what gets companies in trouble. Authenticity comes from evolution, not from creation. No magic pill exists and no big bang will cause a company to become authentic. The honor of being authentic is earned only over time and through consistent, deliberate actions. Same goes for building a corporate culture. A company that respects its employees and treats its employees like family will be rewarded with being viewed by insiders and outsiders as an authentic company."

*** READ MORE ***

Revisiting Eco20/20 Group At Diigo.com

Back in April I joined one of the diigo groups Eco20/20, an organization that according to the group description, is the leader at providing safe,clean,environmentally friendly alternative-renewable energy information. We must be energy smart and independent. Fossil fuels are finite,expensive and damage the air.

Since then it has tripled the number of friends from 56 to 158 and doubled its membership from 15 to 33. This would seem to demonstrate that having a specific focus of purpose and established credentials to achieve that purpose makes it more likely that others will join you or at least tag along. Membership would suggest greater commitment than friendship, the basis of that commitment being contributions of bookmarks.

Energy Net is by far the greatest contributer to the group with 174, as of this writing, bookmarks provided. A visit to Energy Net's profile page will show a long term commitment to this cause. According the profile of the owner, I'm the archivist for the anti-nuclear movement in California that was organized by the Abalone Alliance and further down this site is organized around educating public about the dangers of nuclear power and alternatives to it. Energy Net has 5,348 bookmarks most dealing with energy and nuclear.

I would seem to be third, at least in terms of shared bookmarks with a paltry 12, but then energy and environmental issues have not been a top focus for me. Truth is that most of my shared bookmarks have dealt with economics, economic sustainability, technology or other issues and happened to involve energy issues. I have also, as of yet, not participated in any forums.

I do, however, have more shared bookmarks and even total bookmarks at the eco20/20 diigo site than eco20/20 itself. Is the site then merely a container created for others to fill in their contributions? Does the diigo site help to feed new people to the ECO20/20 website homepage? It is all for the good, rather the question being raised is on effective communication or conversation with the "crowd". At its highest level, the best term I can come up with would be "collaboration". My past posts on this perspective though have bounced all over the place. Energy Net would seem to be getting the greatest leverage out of their efforts on this subject, at least in relation to the diigo community.

Some of my contributed Group Bookmarks are below. Some perhaps could be debated as to whether or not they were applicable or not.

TED | Talks | Majora Carter: Greening the ghetto (video) --- Add comment
- Tag: development economics environment paradigms poverty social-entrepreneurship sustainability ted video - Shared By: Brian Dowling 2008-05-21 03:07:24

- Quotes & Comments -

• Why you should listen to her: Majora Carter is a visionary voice in city planning who views urban renewal through an environmental lens. The South Bronx native draws a direct connection between ecological, economic and social degradation. Hence her motto: - comment by Brian Dowling

European Commission - External Trade - Trade Issues --- Add comment

- Tag: biofuel environment global - Shared By: Brian Dowling 2008-05-21 03:07:26

- Quotes & Comments -

• Mandelson writes: "The issue is not biofuels or no biofuels, but the right biofuels. Europe's governments have signed a commitment ensuring that 10% of the petrol in Europe's vehicles in 2020 is made from renewable transport fuels, including biofuels. This will make an important contribution to the EU's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote security of energy supply. But there is an obvious caveat: biofuels must be an environmental policy in pursuit of an environmental outcome - the most sustainable policy is the only right policy".

Food prices | The end of cheap food | Economist.com --- Add comment

- Tag: economics environment - Shared By: Brian Dowling 2008-05-21 03:07:25

- Quotes & Comments -

• This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks.

Change the Incentive Structure | Cosmic Variance --- Add comment

- Tag: economics environment - Shared By: Brian Dowling 2008-05-21 03:07:25

- Quotes & Comments -

• Change the Incentive Structure

  Sean at 11:46 am, December 13th, 2007

  Via Climate 411, through the intermediaries of Matthew Yglesias and Bradford Plumer, here’s a dramatic example of the government driving innovation â€" the number of patents granted for sulfur-dioxide control technologies per year, with major air-quality legislation marked.

Zerofootprint --- Add comment

- Tag: environment - Shared By: Brian Dowling 2008-05-21 03:07:24

Powerset Co-Founder to Launch Crowdsourced Green VC Fund --- Add comment

- Tag: crowdsourced economics environment vcfund - Shared By: Brian Dowling 2008-05-21 03:07:26

- Quotes & Comments -

• Steve Newcomb, a co-founder of search startup Powerset, is in the early stages of launching a ventur- capital fund that would accept green investments as low as $100, with a maximum investment of $1,000.

  "It would be a breakthrough green venture-capital fund for the people, by the people. As excited as I was about PowerSet, I'm 10 times more excited about this," Newcomb told Wired.com. "Worldwide, there is the potential to raise a multibillion-dollar fund."

Food vs. Fuel --- Add comment

- Tag: economics environment - Shared By: Brian Dowling 2008-05-21 03:07:25

- Quotes & Comments -

• Corn is caught in a tug-of-war between ethanol plants and food, one of the first signs of a coming agricultural transformation and a global economic shift. Ever since our ancestors in the Fertile Crescent first figured out how to grow grains, crops have been used mainly to feed people and livestock. But now that's changing in response to the high price of oil, the cost in lives and dollars of ensuring a supply of petroleum imports, and limits on climate-warming emissions of fossil fuels.

The Greener Grass --- Add comment

- Tag: design environment social-engagement - Shared By: Brian Dowling 2008-05-21 03:07:25

- Quotes & Comments -

• 

  One of the objectives we should want to achieve when defining and presenting ourselves or our life's endeavors is authenticity. One could take it that design also has authenticity has an objective as well from the writings of Finn McKenty, who blogs at Lightheavyweight. Perhaps, though, it is wrong to think of them as being in separate arenas.

  Finn McKenty extends the concern with authenticity to endeavors of social-engagement. Specifically, the Greener Grass project, which is about connecting people with ideas designed to have a positive impact.

  - comment by Brian Dowling

• About The Greener Grass

  The Greener Grass uses our resources to initiate positive change by opening discourse, connecting people, and becoming a conduit for new thinking and discussion that leads to positive outcomes. Our goal is to build a community by interviewing experts and thought leaders, identifying trends, and creating concepts for products, services, and ideas that bring solutions to life.

Make Green Pay Video, Part 1 - CNBC.com --- Add comment

- Tag: business economics entrepreneurship environment sustainability - Shared By: Brian Dowling 2008-05-21 03:07:25

- Quotes & Comments -

• Make Green Pay Video, Part 1 - comment by Brian Dowling

Getting Into Social Media While Having Been There All The While.

This weblog started off as an experiment to teach myself more about web 2.0 technology and as a means of educating myself in other areas of interest. Its impact on me has grown over time having opened up arenas of inquiry that I would not have considered in the beginning.

There has not been a predetermined pathway nor has there been any effort to keep to any pathway in particular. Different aspects of Web 2.0 have been tried, with some being let go and some retained.

One new pathway that this weblog has been pursuing implicitly up until now is social media. Implicitly, because it was not the original intent of this weblog to focus on connecting socially to other users. My admitted bias has been toward ideas. Ideas, however, only have life if they are communicated, and the source of new ideas are other people, so slowly I was drawn into social media. It has been to my benefit, but that would be getting ahead of myself. At first it was with a great deal of skepticism, but over time the potential of web 2.0 tools as a means of bringing about beneficial paradigm shifts has become more real for me. Implicitly, as well, because I have only recently created a social-media tag for this blog or my tagging systems. I have dealt with the subject, but only recognized it as having an ancillary and secondary role. Now it seems a great deal is being written lately about it in the blogosphere on Social Media and its supposed promises, limitations, and in some cases, its dark side.

The dark side come to those who put too much of their personal lives into their blogs find themselves virtually viscerated by the unfeeling masses. I have a greater appreciation for authenticity because of what I have learned through this weblog, but authenticity is different from personal confession. I choose to keep my day job/so called "real" life separate from this effort for a number of reasons. I have provided a photo of myself because hiding behind an avatar seems inauthentic, but that does not mean I have to share personal details or need to know that of others. I can be judged by my ideas and writings. Next comes its promise, mostly made by those in marketing and its limitations made by those who though they are riding the train and in many cases fueling the train ask themselves if by chance someone should warn others as to the possible consequences of the train going faster than we might be able to handle. A number of posts sit in Blogger limbo waiting to be completed on various aspects of this subject.

The ability of this weblog to provide pathways to new learning experiences has grown over time. A greater appreciation of various arenas of study, such as various perspectives on economics, design and marketing has occurred. This weblog makes making connections and seeing interrelationships ever more apparent. These interrelationships are now becoming more complex. Encapsulating a myriad number of ideas, organizing those ideas and now communicating those ideas to others, while others are doing the same with you, is all placed under the label Social Media.

What this all reflects is some concerns raised by some with more experience and creditability in the world of Web 2.0 that has to be contrasted with the growth that this weblog has seen regarding the expanse of connections spanning the globe and the depth of intellectual connections based on the insightfulness and breadth of ideas.

New Marketing Authenticity Over Exaggeration

GapingVoid raises the question, which I have been pondering for some time regarding new marketing.

gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards": so what's all this new marketing stuff, anyway?

• 
  

Part of the answer comes from this article from Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.

Authenticity over Exaggeration: The New Rule in Advertising — HBS Working Knowledge Annotated

tags: communications, marketing, web2.0

The new rules

But what does this all boil down to for companies that want to be successful in this relatively new environment? In the working paper, Deighton and Kornfeld discuss 5 aspects of digital interactivity, including



• Thought tracing. Firms infer states of mind from the content of a Web search and serve up relevant advertising; a market born of search terms develops.


• Ubiquitous connectivity. As people become increasingly "plugged in" through cell phones and other devices, marketing opportunities become more frequent as well—and technology develops to protect users from unwanted intrusions. A market in access and identity results.


• Property exchanges. As with Napster, Craigslist, and eBay, people participate in the anonymous exchange of goods and services. Firms compete with these exchanges, and a market in service, reputation, and reliability develops.


• Social exchanges. People build identities in virtual communities like Korea's Cyworld (90 percent of Koreans in their 20s are members). Firms may then sponsor or co-opt communities. A market in community develops that competes on functionality and status.


• Cultural exchanges. While advertising has always been part of popular culture, technology has increased the rate of exchange and competition for buzz. In addition to Dove's campaign, Deighton cites BMW's iative to hire Hollywood directors and actors to create short, Web-only films featuring BMWs. In the summer of 2001, the company recorded 9 million downloads.

Learning to be True is Better than Learning to be Right

Another blog that this site connects to is Seth Godin's. One of Seth's post particularly applicable is on “The need to be right”. Often more energy is spent trying to support our positions than in trying to find the truth. Seth offers a different perspective.

I like being wrong. Not enough to make a habit of it, but enough to realize that I'm actively testing scenarios. Take a fact of dubious authenticity, riff a scenario around it and see if it feels right. That act of scenario building is a key factor in brainstorming, in creativity and in problem solving. If you need the core fact to be guaranteed right and perfect, you're doomed, because facts like that are in short supply.

Another insightful post was “What you need to fight the manual” on how to change yourself to keep from being outsourced. The idea of depending upon a manual can be expanded to the rest of life. Because we all write our own standard operating paradigms in life, which we come to depend upon. Combining both of these perspectives of Seth give the following insight.

I know, there's a huge need to have right facts and right practice, particularly in jobs where quality of service is essential. Got that. My point is that we're so good at getting those sort of facts right that maybe, just maybe, we need to spend more time teaching people the other stuff. Short version: if your job can be completely written up in a manual, it's either not a great job or it's going to be done by someone cheaper, sometime soon

Finally Seth provides a great connection for the Web 2.0 realm. How to do everything better (online). According to Seth,

The folks at mashable.com do absolutely amazing work. In addition to a useful news feed about what's up online, they regularly put together lists of stuff to make you more productive

Seth also provides his own list of impressive mash-ups

Lesson From Philippe Starck "Design Is Dead" Lesson From Hugh MacLeod "The Future Isn't"

Back at the end of last year Phillipe Starck took the TED stage to answer the question Why design? During that time he railed against the cynicism of Raymond Loewy in the '50s.

Now Kottke.org tells us that Philippe Starck says that design is dead...

Here is Jason Kottke's post from kottke.org by jason@kottke.org back on March 28 of this year.

Philippe Starck says that design is dead and that he's retiring. Says Starck:

I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact. Everything I designed was unnecessary. I will definitely give up in two years' time. I want to do something else, but I don't know what yet. I want to find a new way of expressing myself ...design is a dreadful form of expression. (link)

I am going to follow Seth Godin's advice and have an opinion. Sorry, but being ashamed of producing materiality seems to me to be pretentious. Deciding that you want to do something else that has more meaning for you, yes that I could find admirable, even deciding what you personally designed was unnecessary in regards to your designing it, but to decry design because it works with the elements of this world, well I am not ready to leave the material world just yet. There are more than enough opportunities to find meaningful purpose in designing for the other 80% who could use a bit more materiality.

Materiality is not the problem, it is limiting our vision of ourselves and our world to only materiality. Equally problematic is disdaining the material world.

On numerous occasions this weblog has turned to Seth Godin and Hugh MacLeod for insights. It is not the purpose of this weblog to market anything, yet I still find ideas in their writings that resonate with me, regardless whether or not that was their intention.

MacLeod's latest post, just picked up today, justifies again my labeling MacLeod as the world's most optimistic curmudgeon, with more emphasis perhaps on the curmudgeon. The post also sets a warning marker about being pretentious myself.

The latest source of optimistic inspiration is MacLeod's post on "the blue monster is the future of marketing" via gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" back in May of this year.

I am liberally paraphrasing MacLeod's post here for my own purposes, for his purposes go to his post.

MacLeod defines his Blue Monster as, a cartoon-based "Social Object" that me and my Microsoft buddy, Steve Clayton, unleashed on the good but unsuspecting folk at Microsoft.

I have been interested in the idea of the Social Object and how it fits into new marketing for some time. Not for marketing purposes, but how it defines how we interrelate with each other. It is too simplistic to take the position that it is just about making money. No doubt, if done well, it results in making money, but it is not at the heart of the gesture. The emphasis is on the social not the object.

5. My [MacLeod's] second big insight from this year was learning that, even with a fairly everyday product, you can create social objects simply by using your products to make social gestures.

Now the Blue Monster as a social object is arguably not material (sans pen, ink, paper), but other social objects promoted by MacLeod are. More importantly, they achieve something that perhaps Starck's designs did not, they take on a life of their own.

One of the reasons I haven't talked about it much lately, is simply because there is no longer the need. To paraphrase Steve, "It's already out there, it's already working its magic. It has a life of its own and it no longer needs us."

Perhaps Starck's designs practiced "Subversion as a marketing tool". Starck would not have called it "marketing", but whether it's marketing or telling stories or finding meaning, it can be counterproductive if not done with authenticity, especially if it comes from above, whether hierarchically or metaphorically.

Understanding the Blue Monster means understanding the need to be "bigger than yourself".

Branding as Commodity Finding Connection Through Leadership

Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab, wrote in the early part of this year on The Shrinking Advantage of Brands in Harvard Business Publishing. His definition is not universally accepted, as can be determined from the comments section of the piece, but it does give me some ideas regarding social media and collaboration.

His definition: What is a brand? It’s a promise: information from a firm promising you a set of costs and benefits from the consumption of a good or service. Brands shape your expected value.

As I posted in my other blog, I have been having an ongoing discussion of leveraging social media on behalf of the Millennium Development Goals in one of the End POVERTY / Fim POBREZA forums. What the discussion comes down to in my mind is, does one both lead and empower through social media in raising consciousness about a social cause and how? Branding a social cause can either be an empowering exercise or a form of propaganda.

What is different from Haque's definition of branding compared to others is that he seems to see it, at least orthodox branding, as an iconic devise used to synthesis the costs and benefits into one object, phrase or idea. The interaction costs are so inexpensive with Google or other online tools, it makes it easier for consumers to find the information that they seek, especially from each other. "The cheaper interaction gets, the more connected consumers can talk to each other – and the less time they have to spend listening to the often empty promises of firms." Haque's point is that information about expected costs and benefits doesn’t have to be compressed into orthodox branding logos, or slogans because your audience can debate and discuss their expected values in detail. The trouble is that for social causes most don't, they only connect passively.

Seth's Blog also had a post on the rapid growth (and destruction) and growth of marketing back in October of this year. Seth realizes something that Haque left out in his article which is that brands can also provide a vehicle for social emotion and connection, but it is a vehicle in to which the audience can imbue social emotion and connection rather than depending upon someone else to "feed" it to them.

Social media, it turns out, isn't about aggregating audiences so you can yell at them about the junk you want to sell. Social media, in fact, is a basic human need, revealed digitally online. We want to be connected, to make a difference, to matter, to be missed. We want to belong, and yes, we want to be led.

The next day Seth's Blog had a post on Leadership is now the strongest marketing strategy. He again "markets" his new book on leadership called Tribes from the post the day before. He thinks of his leadership book as actually being a marketing book and vice-a-versa. According to Seth, "The next frontier of marketing is in leading groups of people who are working together to get somewhere."

What works is leading. Leading a (relatively) small group of people. Taking them somewhere they'd like to go. Connecting them to one another. It's enough if the tribe you lead knows about you and cares about you and wants to follow you. It's enough if your leadership changes things, galvanizes the audience and puts the status quo under stress. And it's enough if the leadership you provide makes a difference.

It is easier to be merely broadcasters, putting together a list of iconic branding devises and hurtling it out at hoped for followers. Louder is easier not better. According to Seth, "People want to connect. They want you to do the connecting. Now we're leaders." It is not, however, the definition of leader in the orthodox sense. Claiming leadership regarding the branding of a cause can be a matter of hazardous hubris, both the branding and leadership require a high degree of authenticity.

It seems to be to be a matter of encouraging collaboration by first providing information, education and then following with avenues of action, but realizing that everybody else can and at least a small group should be doing the same thing. How to encourage them to do so around a specific branded cause may be the true role of leadership. How to specifically do that is still a matter to be further explored .

Privacy versus Authenticity Keeping My Online Personae Straight

I have often alluded to my "real life/day job" when writing for this blog. This blog started out as an experiment and as part of that experiment it was decided that it would be kept separate. One, to see how it fared completely on its own without outside assistance, and two, to keep my "real life/day job" uncomplicated with personal viewpoints. Being in public administration means to a large extent that you put your opinions on the backburner and respect the democratic process that put those making the decisions in power.

Because of personal and policy changes at the "day job" my virtual and more openly idealistic online persona, which was borne of this blog, is now getting short shrift. My day job has its own online persona and is getting benefit from what I have learned during my sojourns into the World of Web 2.0 through this blog. The separation still exists, but now more tenuously. It is also getting harder to maintain because while I still have some desire to maintain the private space there is also a sense of being inauthentic or at least fragmented.

There are points of connection and it is possible to discover one of my online personae through the other, but so far nobody has seemed to have noticed any of them. Do I want to make them more obvious?

You Are Commodified When You Lose The Ability To Changing Things

HBS Working Knowledge had an article on When Your Product Becomes a Commodity — Annotated The source of this link was from Businesspundit When Your Product Becomes a Commodity

The truth is, even when a raw material has no value added and quality standards are set by law or the industry, there is still plenty of opportunity for differentiation around availability, delivery, shipment quantities, payment terms, and all the other services that accompany the core product. Marketers must use their imagination. As the saying goes: "There are no mature products, only mature managers."

I see it relating to the concepts I am trying to get my head around from Gapingvoid, Seth Godin and even Kevin Kelly. Not in terms of a specific product but how to relate to this as a manager providing service. Moreover, I am trying to look beyond just the "mechanics", which I sense from the readings is only a veneer that wears through quickly.

It has been Gapingvoid which as given me the closest sense of this, though I have not zeroed in on it fully yet. The mechanics yes, but there seems or maybe I am looking for something more. I see it related to an ability to make change in the world for the better. If one's ability to make self generate change in the world is compromised, then one becomes a commodity.

gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards": meatball sundae: ten questions for seth godin Annotated

Here's my challenge: I want to change things. Sometimes, the best way to do that is to reach out to committed individuals and give them some ideas to run with. On the other hand, big changes, sea changes... those happen in larger organizations with leverage. So, my books have sort of struck a balance, sometimes emphasizing one more than the other. In this case, it's clear that the digerati 'get' what's going on with the new marketing. But we're frustrated. I wrote this book to help us out. The phrase, "meatball sundae" is designed as a rallying cry, something to sneer at in a big meeting.

gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards": why marketers are so interested in blogs Annotated

Yesterday, while Johnnie Moore, Mark Earls and I were recording a podcast, Johnnie came up with a wonderful metaphor to describe this phenomenon.

He told Mark and me about being 12 years old in science class. To demonstrate that yes, indeed, a stick of celery is full of capillaries, even if you couldn't see them with the naked eye, the science teacher dipped the end of a stick of celery into a beaker of blue ink. An lo and behold, the kids watched in amazement as the ink traveled up the celery capillaries, turning the rest of the green celery stalk into blue.

Suddenly that which could not be seen before, could now clearly be seen. Glaringly so.

I think Seth said it pretty well to me the other day: "The web is a giant compiler for marketers. You can experiment here for less money, in less time, than anywhere else. If Al Gore hadn't invented it, I'd be seriously bummed out."

The thing about creating a blog is that lines keep continually crossing and there does not seem to be any constraints or parameters. Within the web as 'defined' by web 2.0 organizational permeablity does not seem to be an issue allowing what Kevin Kelly wrote about and for authenticity in our efforts to connect.

tags: design, entrepreneurship, gvoid, marketing

Still Thinking About Marketing And Web Complexity

I am still thinking about Anita Campbell's article When Did Online Marketing Become So Complex? OPEN Forum Blog from American Express OPEN. This post will address the questions she raised more directly. It has been revised since the weekend.

Below is her chart on how she organizes web 2.0 programs as business tools in terms of their return on investment.

The chart uses concentric circles to outline an online marketing strategy. Here is the chart I've come up with (click image for larger version):
The most important elements of an online marketing strategy appear in the center two circles. Those are the activities you will get the greatest return from, for the time and money you spend on them.

The main objective is to sell some service or product, but to my mind the web doesn't sell anything, it makes connections. People then sell to themselves. The primary focal point of connection is the website (or whatever one uses as their primary platform) and each concentric circle should connect to it in some way to it.

The difference between the inner circle of blogs, e-mail marketing, SEO, Pay-Per-Click and Online Press Releases is that they are more direct and focused than the outer circle of tags, and social-networking. The outer circle is less direct but it is the arena where viral marketing can arise. One could make a MySpace site dedicated especially to a particular business or service. That though should put it into the inner circle. The same could be true of listing like the yellow pages, though that does seem more passive than other components in the inner circle. Overall, it seems to be a matter of achieving authenticity.

Ms Campbell has a number of different web 2.0 programs on the outer circle, but I believe that they could be grouped into broader categories. They could also be divided by demographics, Linked-in for professionals, MySpace for younger kids. Delicious appeals to a different group then does Digg.

Ms Campbell argues against spending too much time on the outer circle which makes sense to me. Having an established and dependable foundation at your center and inner circle allows customers to respond on their own to what you have to offer. This is an essential point in my view. Your customers have to have the option to respond on their own. Your job is to figure out who your customers are.

This weblog is on the other end of the exchange. It is one of the potential consumers. It is more likely to be a secondary marketing platform. According to FeedBurner, Ms Campbell's article has been clicked on 42 times in the last month through my Delicious account, most before I got around to posting about it. How people got to it, I don't know. It is the fifth most popular item clicked on in the last 30 days. Yesterday, it got three clicks. My post from yesterday in which it was featured got one click.

Yet, according to Delicious, her article has only been bookmarked by one other person. I "discovered" it on StumbleUpon. There is also the question of how my connections with others effect this weblog. Over the last week the number of clicks to posts or sites featured on this weblog per day was around 20. Yesterday, it was 60. It is no longer a one-way discourse, even if we are not in direct conversation. It is a cascading flow of information that needs to be studied more.