My heart was in the right place, but my head was totally out of the game. It could have been because I wasn’t well rested. It could have been because I was totally exhausted with the purpose of the meeting. I’m sure it was a combination of all of these things. But what happened was, I almost led our team off the cliff. When I came off of my tirade, I did a little checking myself on the issue at hand and realized that… indeed I was marching in the wrong direction.

I was able to turn around quickly, and as soon as I did the rest of the team (incredibly relieved) pushed in the right direction and we found resolution.

I realized in that instant that having the heart of a warrior, and being fortunate enough to lead people with your heart, is a great responsibility and must be carefully observed. I learned in an instant how people in power can act foolishly. It’s easy. You care, and you want the best… but you have to be willing to listen. I MUST LISTEN. And I must realize that the other people I’m working with care too.

Hmmph… tough lesson.

I haven’t figured this out yet. The more I strive to do, the less connected I am to some of the most important people in the world to me. And yet, I think about them constantly…

I don’t know how to express how incredibly strong and weak I feel right now. My destiny screams at me, and so do my demons. It is at times like this, that I thank the Universe for my family, closest friends and comrades. This is the only time that has ever mattered… it’s everything I have ever been and clearly the beginnings of all that I am supposed to be.

I’m really sorry to all my dear ones who I have not been in contact with lately, I’m doing the best I can.

- Haru

Lover, Warrior, Champion.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Lover part. It’s so hard to Love, but it’s rewards are endless. Love doesn’t require time to build, it exists to spread itself and merge with itself and reveal itself over and over again. I’ve learned that Love is not totally based on getting to know someone, because no matter how long you “know” someone, you never really KNOW them. So Love is always a risk, and there is never any safeguard against that risk.

I’ve learned how much I can Love a friend, a co-worker, a parent, a stranger. I’ve especially learned how romantic Love is not for the weak… ever. You have to be strong to Love, or dare to be in Love. You have to Love because it is what you truly want to do, not because you want it in return. And you have to Love to Love and be in Love. It’s nice to “feel” Loved, but I’ve personally found that this Love is secondary to the Love that comes from within and moves to others.

I Love a lot of people right now. They don’t all know it, but that doesn’t change anything. It would be nice to be Loved by them, but more important is that my Love for them makes my life worth living.

inspired innovation.

I live to challenge everything that I hear defined as a rule or a law. That which I know to be law, I use in my challenge. There are 9 things that I accept when striving for inspired innovation:

1) I will never know it all, but I will always have access to it all.
2) I know better than anyone else what’s best for me, because I know more about me than anyone else.
3) Relationships are like schools, it’s important to understand that you enroll, and you can either graduate or drop out. Either decision is fine.
4) A challenge is the inspiration to innovate, and thus allows innovation to be a lifelong mission.
5) Innovation does not always mean increase, sometimes innovation means reduce. The volume used is based on the challenge at hand.
6) I can only innovate effectively when I face challenges I can successfully meet.
7) When I work with others to meet a common challenge, I can inspire them, be inspired by them, and impact the entire world.
Inspiration overcomes depression.
9) I am grateful for my challenges.

1. Most effective presentation: Using Social Media for Good Causes – Beth Kanter. How we raised $3,774 in 90 minutes for Cambodian kids.

2. Most effective single slide: Scott Maxwell’s photo of Earth from Mars. The Pale Blue Dot indeed.

3. Most laughs from a presentation: Jeremy Toeman - Bug Lab’s (Production Factory from the Olympics)

4. Favorite conference moment: The time I spent with Dave (after a long time apart), reuniting with the Vancouver kids (Unc Weed, kk+, Nat etc.) and meeting Amanda Koster.

5. Favorite non-conference moment: Magic bus ride. Yup.

6. Coolest discovery (aha moment): Comprehension of Cyborg Reality, and viewing the rest of the conference through new eyes.

7. Favorite presentation: Scott Maxwell - Mars 3.0

I just got back from Gnomedex 8.0 yesterday, and I can’t really explain how that event changed me. I know that the other people who attended can understand though.

So, for them, and myself… I’m going to blog again. And embrace Social Media again.

I shot some pictures. I’m going to upload them now. Hope you like them.

I understand this plight all too well, as I was launching my fledgling company “Remarkable Wit” (which is now holding its own), I found it very hard to convey the essence of my company to potential funders. Now, I’m kind of happy it worked out the way it did because it forced me to get some real revenue and prove my model in order to survive, but I have a lot more credence in town than many other aspiring hackers/entrepreneurs and I can see why so many start-ups never start up. There really does need to be more communication between those of us in the know, and those who have the means to enable those in the know. I know of a few startups right now that should be off the ground, but they just haven’t gotten their funding secured yet. It’s a bit to frustrating to watch, honestly.

Having lunch with them really made me proud of the work that the BarCamp Nashville Crew has done thus far to promote and celebrate Internet focused communities and companies in Middle Tennessee. I think there may be very good things that come from this meeting, and I applaud the Chamber and TTDC for reaching out to us to seek a way to work together. I’m predicting more great events and forums in the future, held in our beautiful city of Nashville.

I’m doing a few things in the next few weeks that I want to highlight:

- Making my first full time job offer to a great guy for the position of Senior Developer at Remarkable Wit. (Fingers Crossed!!!)
- Interviewing Andi Gutmans from Zend, again This time for a podcast Remarkable Wit is going to launch on all web technologies.
- Kicking off two incredibly cool projects with Remarkable Wit, and I’ll launch an official site for RW.
- Attending, Hosting and Enjoying “PodCamp Nashville”
- Visiting my new favorite place on Earth, Santa Monica, for the fourth time in five months.

I’ve also nearly doubled my Facebook friends with old high school friends that I am so happy to be reconnected with. Facebook really is fresh.

It’s just such a great time. 2008 is bringing the love.

I thought about why I can’t leave my current profession and do one of the other 30 things I’m interested in. My answer: I’m passionate beyond reason about user experience, revolutionary products, and community dynamics. I would love to execute these things on a mass scale like some of the companies I so admire, but at the moment that would be biting off more than I can chew. I can, however, support the current players involved in these same service pillars and grow from inside the industry. Having said that, I am going to take that approach with MyPossible Inc.’s first business venture, “Remarkable Wit” (RW).

Remarkable Wit is a firm dedicated to internet projects ranging from consumer web properties to industrial applications. We serve as silent partners in projects as well as headliners on a few products of our own. As consultants we help customers find the real value in their idea and create a realistic and attainable goal. As contractors we design and develop very powerful, user focused applications for every market that the internet influences. Finally, we keep the loop open between the creators and the consumers to ensure that the product continues to meet the needs of the consumer.

Let me briefly share just a bit on Plan, Build, Share:

Plan - (experience strategy)
If you want to enjoy outrageous success in business, always consider how the customer feels when engaged with the company. Whether it is through the advertising, the sales process, or the use and support of the product or service. Many companies fail in the most basic categories of adequate support, respectful customer service and appropriate pricing. Those are just the basics of good business, and it’s a shame that some entrepreneurs can rightfully claim them as a unique characteristic of their company.

You simply should not be offering a service that you cannot properly support. You should not sell anything if you don’t plan on carrying the ’sales charm’ through into customer service. You should definitely not engage in a business where ripping off customers with price gouging is necessary to stay in business. You should provide a great product, great service, great support and price it all appropriately. Experience strategy says that the primary focus is on creating a mind-blowing experience for the customer. This perspective helps you take your vision and scope it properly for maximum effectiveness and minimum risk.

Build - (product architecture and development)
Most products, especially technology products, are about luxury and quality. Beyond food, clothing and shelter, people really don’t *need* anything you are selling. However, people want lots of things that they don’t need. Therefore, the successful product must meet a strong want of a well defined market. That product should also be crafted to the highest quality that you can reasonably provide. There is no longevity in a product with crappy quality. Product architecture ensures that someone vision actually resembles the picture that they have in their head, rather than becoming a nightmare.

After architecture, personnel, workflow and interaction are key. You must have the best people doing the best work in the most efficient way in constant communication to avoid getting confused. Creating this environment as well as succeeding are very difficult tasks, but they are tasks that I am quite obsessed with and look forward to completing with RW.

Share - (community farming)
Today’s successful company is thinking less about making a profit from their customers, and more about building a long term relationship with their customer that has continued benefits for both parties. Successful communities are the result of a fine tuned ear. You have to listen well, read trends and predict the wants of well defined groups of people. Growing a strong community is much more about listening and implementing than it is about leading. In short, growing a community is about constantly serving the community. Community farming is a philosophy that we put in action through constantly evolving methods of communication between creators and consumers. The goal is that these roles switch between customer and company often throughout the life of the relationship.

Creating the forum and being it’s caretaker is the work of the community farmer. Communities are always looking to be grown, but they need the fertile soil and nourishment to grow. This is an area that I have succeeded in several times over the last few years, and I look forward to growing more communities through RW.

That in a nutshell is what I will be doing. Of course, this is very conceptual and even slightly abstract. This is just done for those who have been interested in what I’m doing and might stumble upon this post.

Crop circles in Tennessee? Thanks for the heads up Cry.

The Netherlands Boys

Originally uploaded by marcuswhitney

I was trying to do some housecleaning today, both literal and digital. Been uploading some old pics to Flickr, and I came across this pic from our Toronto trip in 2004. We met these boys in the hallway in a hotel, I think a Sheraton, and ended up hanging with them all night.

Don’t even remember their names, but isn’t it interesting how people you’ve met once can hold such a special place in your heart. I think one of them was named Gunthar… or something. One was a CS whiz, one was a military boy, and I don’t remember about the rest. They were cool as hell though. Anyway, just missing Toronto today, hoping Dave will get me back there one day

Hello all, really quickly… Just wanted to remind anyone who reads this that next Friday and Saturday is IN3, the Generation TN conference. I’m getting more excited everyday looking at the list of attendees. If you are interested in learning about how you can make a difference in TN through education, economic development, healthcare or general legislation, this is the place to be.

I then went to sleep watching “Get Rich Or Die Tryin’”, 50 Cent’s somewhat autobiographical movie. What I got from it was a reminder of how dismal the situation in the ‘hood’ can be, and why something needs to be done about it. The movie also had a very clear message: regardless of what you think about hip-hop music, for many children of the ghetto, hip-hop seems to be the only way out. This means that hip-hop is a ‘language’ they are listening to, and the beats are extremely important.

All this got me thinking, would it not be possible to create an entire education and economic system based on hip-hop?  I’m not talking about the usual “revolutionary” hip-hop that does nothing but rant about injustice, but offers no solution.  I’m talking about a system that enlightens the children to true hiphop culture, economics, health, wellness, and self-awareness.
Indeed this is a subset of the mission of the Temple of HipHop. I enquired this morning on how to become a member. When I arrived at the website, I was surprised to see that this week is Hip Hop Appreciation Week. I think I’m getting signals on my noble purpose.

• Ciaran’s pink eye is over.  Whew.  Working at home is just not my thing.
• Jessica and I are going to make music.  Together.  Happy times.
• Message Systems is an amazing company with an amazing product.
• Things are good in general.  I’m gonna get some spiritual food today.
• Tomorrow I will see Lara Duncan for a Nutritional Consultation.  Very excited about that.
• I hope this doesn’t show up on planet-php, but if it does, it’s not my fault.  I asked them to remove me.
• Oh, and I’m going to Gnomedex.  Nice.

Me, I’m really just embracing all the good around me.  So, from me to you, take a minute and smell the Cognac (hat tip Phil Leotardo).