I’ll be largely offline for a little bit, living an active offline life in areas with limited Internet access. Not sure how much I’ll post from Perth, Kuala Lumpur and Mumbai over the next couple weeks. But trust that I’ll be back, strong, soon.

Daniel Roth in Wired Magazine, The Answer Factory: Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell:

… To appreciate the impact Demand is poised to have on the Web, imagine a classroom where one kid raises his hand after every question and screams out the answer. He may not be smart or even right, but he makes it difficult to hear anybody else.

(link via Alan Patrick)

At TribeCon 2009 in New Orleans last week I got to participate in a panel discussion about how to embrace making yourself uncomfortable for personal and professional growth.

Little did I know I would get to put the idea to use just a couple days later.

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When I originally planned out my travel schedule for this fall, I booked my flight from New Orleans to San Francisco on the only reasonably-priced flight I could find, a 7 AM departure on the Sunday morning after Halloween. As I booked the ticket, I knew very well that I was also planning on either spending the night at the airport or going straight to the airport from a rollicking good time.

What I hadn’t planned on:

• Having the best Halloween of my life,
• Having a great time at Voodoo Music Experience with great guides and partners-in-adventure,
• Getting my face painted as a Zombie at the music festival,
• Taking a 5 AM challenge to keep the face paint on during my flight from New Orleans to Houston to San Francisco that morning.

But that’s why it was so fun, freeing and powerful.

First off, an important point: I’m an unquestioned introvert, and I’m not an exhibitionist. I’ve never liked Halloween; I’ve always loved to see the creativity and costumes, but I’ve never wanted to participate. I’ve skipped many Halloween parties, and taken a general pass on the holiday throughout my life. I can’t remember a single good costume I’ve worn over the years. I was a face-paint virgin.

But, when friends Sloane and Kyle jumped right in to get their faces painted as zombies at the festival, despite a bit of reluctance, it seemed like a good opportunity to try something new.

Without feeling physically different, I initially felt emotionally different, a little self-conscious, even if everyone else was doing it. I showed pictures from my camera of what I looked like without the face paint. But the feeling faded, and as the night continued at the festival and deeper into the New Orleans nightlife, I forgot about it.

And thus, helped by a little liquid courage, when Kyle and Sloane offered to drive me to the airport at 5 AM to catch my flight, on the condition that I kept the zombie face paint on for my flights to Houston and San Francisco that morning, it wasn’t even a decision. Of course I would.

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, New Orleans, LA

Would you let a friend board a plane looking like this?

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, New Orleans, LA

Waiting to go through security, worried a little bit about whether security will let me through without taking off the face paint, an unfounded concern as it turned out.

Sharing the moment on Twitter:

Getting ready to go through security at MSY (ping @feelgoodz @sloane) http://flic.kr/p/7c4tBV (tweet)

Sharing the moment on Twitter:

#photo a guaranteed conversation starter, getting ready to board flight http://flic.kr/p/7c8t9N (tweet)

On board the first flight from New Orleans to Houston

On board the plane from New Orleans to Houston, around 6:45 AM. As it turned out, I sat in the front row, at the entrance to the plane, enjoying the many looks from people getting on. Looks, smiles, quick glances, but no comments.

Sharing the moment on Twitter:

Taking a bit of #Voodoo and a NOLA Halloween on my flight (cc @feelgoodz @sloane) http://flic.kr/p/7c8A6u (tweet)

Layover at George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport

Enjoying an hour’s layover at George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport. A normal Sunday 8 AM, obviously.

Sharing the moment on Twitter:

A zombie’s layover in Houston airport (a late Halloween night, extended) #greatstory http://flic.kr/p/7c6cdt (tweet)

On board the second flight from Houston to San Francisco

Sharing the moment on Twitter:

Bringing a New Orleans #Voodoo Zombie to SF (on the second plane) #greatstory http://flic.kr/p/7c6z6g (tweet)

On board the second flight from Houston to San Francisco

Hanging with the airplane staff on the second flight from Houston to San Francisco.

At final destination, San Francisco International Airport

Arrived, a deal completed, at San Francisco International Airport, around 11 AM local time.

Sharing the moment on Twitter:

The Deal, completed; a NOLA #Voodoo Halloween zombie lands in SF http://flic.kr/p/7cfCQY (tweet)

Sharing the moment on Twitter:

Done. @sloane: The Deal. @feelgoodz & I drive @tdavidson to dawn flight, the #Voodoo NOLA Halloween makeup stays on. http://flic.kr/p/7c8A6u (tweet)

Once I arrived and took a couple pictures, I washed off the face paint the men’s bathroom. Interestingly, a couple guys came up to me and said they had flown the same route and had noticed me get on the planes in New Orleans and Houston and had been betting why I was in face paint, but hadn’t asked me.

And that was the most curious thing to me. Nobody asked me about the face paint. Not security, or the airline ticket-takers, or fellow passengers, or the stewards and stewardesses, or people walking in the airports, or even the passengers I sat next to (perhaps, especially the passengers I sat next to). All probably curious, but afraid to ask.

But instead of waiting for people to ask, I embraced this as an opportunity to start a lot of conversations. I converted many glances and quick smiles into conversations and laughs, simply by reaching out to people and explaining a little bit about why I was dressed in muddy shoes, a blazer and silver Zombie face paint that morning. Simply by being a little uncomfortable, by being willing to make a fool of myself, I hope I brought a little bit of joy to everyone that day: to everyone that saw me but didn’t say anything, to everyone I talked to and laughed with that morning and hopefully to everyone that followed the story on Twitter around the world.

Would I do it again? If the opportunity presented itself, yes. Would I plan to do it? No.

Why the difference? Because the joy was in running with the moment, with accepting the opportunity, to embracing the simple fun involved with carrying an in-context joy to an out-of-context oddity, to creating an unexpected experience and story for us all to enjoy.

The lesson? Being different usually isn’t the plunge we think it is; instead of shying away from trying something new or standing out, embrace the opportunity for yourself and for others. Being “a human in public” both online and offline is a fantastic way to connect with people and build real relationships, whether they exist only in the moment or forever.

And I couldn’t have done it without you.

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Thanks to Sloane, Kyle and Andrew and the rest of the New Orleans community for showing me a truly great time and helping create a story for all of us to share. I’ll see you all again soon.

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All the pictures above on Flickr, A Zombie’s Journey.

Life, Overflowing, Frenchmen St., Halloween, New Orleans, Louisiana (CLICK ON PHOTO ABOVE TO VIEW LARGER)

What’s not to love about this picture?

(For friends and the curious: more photos from Voodoo Music Experience, New Orleans, Halloween and simply great times.)

Judith D. Schwartz, What Jane Jacobs Can Teach Us About the Economy:

Jane Jacobs was an advocate of decentralization; her belief that economies function on a regional, as opposed to national, level has helped spur recent interest in launching local currencies.

But her suspicion of bigness was pragmatic rather than ideological: In her view, the larger and more complex the institution or economy, the less accurate the feedback it provides. And accurate feedback is crucial for a system to self-correct. One way to look at our financial near-crash is as the result of crisscrossing feedback loops: mixed messages coming from GDP, foreign exchanges, the stock exchange, housing sales, the data from different parts of the country contradicting each other so that when policy adjusts for one area it destabilizes another like a seesaw that veers up and down but never finds equilibrium.

With so many layers in our financial system, feedback gets lost.

… One advantage of local, as opposed to centralized, production, is that there’s more transparency, she says. Efficiency, in the sense of economies of scale, does not always promote wealth and productivity, she says. “You don’t want so much control in one place. Most innovation happens on the grassroots level.”

Interestingly, there’s a couple separate issues here: size, complexity, transparency and efficiency.

Smaller, less complex, more transparent systems are not necessarily more efficient. Instead of a set answer, the “right” form of organization requires a deeper look into the institutional arrangements within the system.

Noting the work of the recent Nobel Prize winners Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom, Umair Haque points out:

Ostrom’s work is concerned, fundamentally, with challenging Garret Hardin’s famous Tragedy of the Commons, itself a living expression of neoclassical thinking. Ostrom suggests that far from a tragedy, the commons can be managed from the bottom-up for a shared prosperity — given the right institutions. That conclusion challenges orthodox economics from both left and right leaning perspectives; it suggests that, yes, markets can organize production and consumption efficiently — but only when supported and nurtured by networks and communities.

Meaning: the question really isn’t about decentralization or centralization, but the form of organization and interaction dictated by the economics of markets, networks and communities in that system.

With that in mind, much of my recent thinking has centered on the role of the local and the individual in large systems; mainly, what trends are impacting how the local and the individual impact our systems of organization?

• As it becomes easier, faster and more meaningful to build context into communication,
• As searching the “small here” continues to get better (higher signal / noise ratio),
• And as the economics of niches redefines the meaning and power of local,
• As transparency, “being public” and being human becomes easier, cheaper and more powerful (imagine the power of temporary, localized personal RFPs and personal APIs),
• “Local” can be a viable concept to apply to both the physical and the online world (with the digitally annotated physical world the holy grail), and …
• Local, real-time, meaningful, data-driven feedback will continue to take a larger role in our everyday personal and business lives. The local movement won’t change every aspect of our lives, but the impact will be profound on social norms, cultural values, governmental organization, and economic and accounting profits and losses.
• Thus, large organizations and large systems will be forced to adapt, using markets, networks and communities within their organizations and systems to restructure interactions and decisions.

Thoughts?

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(thanks to Jeremy Heigh for the Jane Jacobs link)

Discarding profound thoughts from an abandoned house, considering spikes and the loci of people and place.

Last week at the inaugural TribeCon, a conference about the power of communities, I got the chance to participate on a panel called “Make Yourself Uncomfortable: How to Rawk a New Community” with Sloane Berrent, Shannon Lane and Carl Nelson:

You want to expand your professional circle, transition into a new career, learn something new, or go to a new city and meet the locals. But how? By introducing yourself to new online and offline communities to meet new people and open up opportunities. In order to do that you’re going to have to make yourself uncomfortable.

Making yourself uncomfortable is a powerful way to identify and take advantage of current and new opportunities. In this panel, we’ll share personal stories, hard-earned lessons and practical advice on how to find and explore the edges and cores of new-to-you communities. We’ll provide tips on how to break through being uncomfortable and transitioning to a whole new outlook in order to use communities for personal and professional growth. (details)

But TribeCon was about a lot, lot more.

Recapping TribeCon
To understand what TribeCon 2009 was about, start by reading Matt Catrett’s solid summary about Tribecon and viewing my pictures from the day.

But while it’s easy to read about the event and see what happened, the spirit of TribeCon is a little more difficult to absorb without having been there.

To me, TribeCon wasn’t just a conference, but a celebration, a shared experience, a family get-together between people with evil plans for how to create, build, lead and contribute to meaningful change in their communities. Yes, it’s a business conference, complete with talks and panel discussions about serious issues in business and government, but TribeCon was guided by a vibe and a sense of “realness” that allowed us to talk serious business without an overbearing sense of seriousness.

And for that, here’s my personal thank you to Chris Schultz, Tiffany Starnes and the crew of volunteers, attendees and speakers that made it happen.

Thank you. Already looking forward to TribeCon 2010 and to the next time I’m in New Orleans.

And to provide a great example of how and why making yourself uncomfortable is powerful, I’ll soon share a great story about a recent journey…

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The slides for the panel discussion “Making Yourself Uncomfortable”:

Mike Bonifer, Adios, Vacilar?

For a brief instant in that workshop at NYU, I let myself imagine, darkly, that maybe vacilar was no more, that maybe it had been rendered irrelevant by the marvels of computing, and would have to be stricken from the GameChangers lexicon. And then I came to my senses. Not true. Not true at all. Never less true, in fact.

Life happens when we take the local, not the express. When we are open to what and whom we run into unexpectedly, we make possible what we can’t imagine or bring into being on our own, and find new and productive avenues for expressing ourselves in the world.

Getting lost is the first step toward discovering what no search engine can find.

Out and about, having fun at Photo Plus Expo. Photo above from crashing a private penthouse roof deck party, creating potentially uncomfortable experiences that turn out great.

Step away from the keyboard and do the same. I’ll see you next week in New Orleans at TribeCon.

Recessions ground large organizations. Locked in groupthink and the inability for individuals to drive or commit to risky change for fear of change, big companies under-innovate and focus on reducing risk and maximizing current revenue from existing lines of business. Thinking about (and investing for) the future dries up.

But recessions provide opportunities for individuals and small teams to implement big ideas. Recessions create flux, and smaller teams are better equipped to make nimble changes to take advantage of change. Examples? Consumers (businesses and people, B2B and B2C) are more open to re-evaluating consumption decisions to save costs, finding new providers, cutting or renegotiating long-term leases or expense commitments. Consumers and businesses need good, quality information on how to change and adapt, where to find new services and providers, how to trade, barter and sell assets and services. Creating, analyzing and using structured data becomes even more important for people and companies to find niches of opportunity and swim against the tide; creating pockets and niches of success are important seeds to build consumer confidence and corporate energy for innovation and change.

Government’s role during recessions is to provide opportunities for individuals and small teams, not to support large industries. True innovation will not come from supporting the business models of the past. Layoffs and “reorganizations” are inevitable even if governments bailout dying companies. Instead of attempting to support existing jobs, governments are better served to help create new jobs, starting by helping smaller organizations find and hire the newly laid-off and by helping the newly unemployed create their own businesses.

How? Reduce the transaction costs behind corporate change, make it easier for new companies to find and access startup equity and credit, and level the playing field for small and large organizations. Even if revenue is tough, small businesses that create value, solve problems and acquire customers can “cash in” when the economy recovers; either revenue improves or the company can sell it’s valuable asset to the public (IPO) or to a private acquirer (mergers and acquisitions).

Businesses need time, people and money to turn costs into revenues, and government’s role is to help time, people and money flow towards the right opportunities. Instead of blindly repairing the old, build bridges to the future.

[Addendum: The oddity? Big companies and institutions that take advantage of recessions and crises to reallocate resources and create new business models can capture supra-normal profits. But that change has to come from within, not poked and prodded through government support.]