On the Road

Getting an idea off the ground is like quitting a vice, or starting a new healthy regimen, if you can commit to three days, it becomes habit....ya right. Keeping that age old rule of thumb in mind, today is officially the third day of the Google Search for Zen, a venture in understanding today’s social arena, and then getting tomorrow’s tools, into yesterday's leaders hands. Still following...?

After putting down Thomas L. Friedman's "The World is Flat", Flipping through Don Tapscott's Wikinomics, and throwing Roger Martin's "Integrative Thinking" somewhere between the couch and the wall, I slowly realized that in order to bridge the gap between today’s integrated tools and technophobes, I was starting in the wrong place. While the lessons and stories in each of these books are truly groundbreaking, they are not where I begin, but maybe revisit at a later stage.

Taking a shower with CSNY playing in the background, it started to hit me. Boomers and traditionalists do NOT need to be taught social networking, they just need a little push in the right direction with today's E-quipment. Hell, they're the greatest social networkers of all time. They turned a couple of posters, and some word of mouth into arguably the greatest social networking event of all time - Woodstock. They're the originators of the protest movement, the sit in, international human rights movements and the explosion of sport en masse - All prime examples of social networking. And all this without a twitter, a facebook, a BBM, an email...wait..wait, without a Cell Phone. So you give the basic knowhow in their hands, who do you think can use today's social networking tools more importantly, the average person who grew up in the late 60's, having raised a family, become financially independent, pursued a career and believed in something, or your average 17.5 year old girl/guy whose latest facebook post involves a fused funnel and tube to drink out of.

So I'm starting with the strengths of boomers, not the weaknesses where I began and building out from there. Their inherent ability to network, their acquired wisdom, and their patience. Those are things I can work with, and qualities that today's tools have weakened among gen Y'rs, including myself, so if you'll excuse me, I just concentrated for about 5 min longer than is healthy.

Boom. D

Intresting site i stumbled on re: social networking based solutions:
http://www.hunch.com/ - why make decisions when a formula based website can do it for you.

The Journey's infancy stages

Unlike the hula-hoop, slap bracelets or collectible sports trading cards, Social networking, while fun for many, is not a toy without practical use or function. I'm finding more and more through my Google Search for Zen, that it is quite the contrary. The past few months have led to my own personal tipping point, to assess where the gap between talented people, and useful networking tools exists, and how to bridge that gap in an innovative and personal way. The goal - The push to provide the tools and know how to Internet novices, namely boomers whose talents and knowledge have allowed them to miss or avoid (depending on which angle you look at it) learning how to use the Internet effectively. There is just no convincing me that coupling arguably the most talented and contributing generation to walk the planet, with the most far reaching and highly effective information gathering tool in the history of man is not an goal that must simply be met, and met well.

Continuing to create the workshop that will address these issues on a more basic level, along with developing the workshop, I'm going to point out social networking sites, that have piqued my interest not only in their potential ability to get many visitors, but specifically in their application to boomers and other Internet novices.

Upmo.com - a site specifically designed to assess your networking strength, and give networking based advice. For those running their own business during turbulent times, and specifically for those who may find themselves out of a job or on the brink of a layoff, very relevant, and most importantly Free (for now).


Today is dedicated to getting workshop materials up and running, while continuing to figure out how to get people in seats, and skills in hands.

Beginning the Quest, "Portrait of a Blogger as a Young Man"

Today I begin my quest to bring social media to those who may need/benefit from it most, but understand it the least. The Google Search for Zen is my attempt to bring social networking into the hands of talented, intelligent, creative people, for whom things like twitter, facebook, digg mean nothing at all. In understanding how we can use these tools to make our lives easier, connect with people more often, and bring our ideas to more people through networking, who knows what good we can still bring out of ourselves.

Goal: 1st work shop week of April 14th 2009.