Ravenweb Blog

2010 was an eventful and transitional year for me, with highs and lows, and moments of happiness and sadness. January I started the year determined to branch out professionally from managing technical projects in the web/tech space. In an effort to make new contacts and connect with unusual suspects, I finally embraced social media, and created accounts on LinkedIn and Twitter . Gradually, I met many new, interesting people, and really became energized about work and professional networking. April In April, my mother passed after a long illness. I felt the full gamut of emotions: grief that my mother had passed, relief that she was no longer in pain, sorrow that my daughter's time with her grandmother was so short, and resolve, to go out and embrace life.   In October, on the date of her birthday, I posted some of my memories of my mother . May Toward the end of Spring, I joined the Reserve Hose Fire Company . I'd been looking for a way to give back to my communit...

In Drive , Daniel Pink challenges the old guard notions of motivation that remain entrenched in business today and still hold that people are driven primarily by external carrot and stick motivators. Examining and citing old and new research, the author contends that carrot and stick motivators actually only work in certain circumstances (with rule-based routine tasks) and people are instead strongly motivated today by some combination of the following factors: Autonomy - the desire to direct their lives Mastery - the urge to get better and better at something that matters Purpose - the yearning to do something as part of something larger than ourselves The implications of a reassembled paradigm of motivation are huge and far-reaching. In a normative workplace, everything from prescribed work schedules, fixed work processes, and performance bonuses could and should be recast if you approach motivation differently. One other note. It's worth noting that Daniel Pink writes v...

There is an early sequence in Unbowed when Wangari Maathai describes a fig tree and nearby stream where she would constantly go to fetch water. Even as a girl, Maathai relates how fascinated she was by the crystal-clear stream and all the life in the water and around it, in the shrubs, reeds, ferns, and surrounding fig tree. Later she would realize how everything was connected -- how the "fig tree held the soil together, reducing erosion and landslides," and how forests, fresh water, wildlife, everything contributed to a functional, sustainable biodiversity. Fundamentally, Unbowed , is the story of Maathai's devotion to the natural balance and sustainability she felt at a young age. The text details her education in Kenya and abroad and key role in establishing the Green Belt Movement, an environmental and communal grassroots organization based in Kenya with a primary focus on planting trees and combating deforestation. The book details Maathai's many struggles a...

Our snow-covered backyard, courtesy of an intense band of lake effect snow:

There are a number of Thanksgiving songs, but few that I enjoy that much or that are universally recognized. Hankering for some distinct Thanksgiving rock/pop music, I made my own playlist of songs that express "thanks" or "thank you" in the title or lyrics. It's a start, but I would love to add to the list. So please suggest other songs in the comments. "Kind and Generous" - Natalie Merchant "Thank God for the Bomb" - Ozzy Osbourne "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" - John Denver "Thanks That Was Fun" - Barenaked Ladies "Thank U" - Alanis Morissette "Thank You" - Dido "Thank You" - Led Zeppelin "The Thanksgiving Song" - Adam Sandler  "Thnks fr th Mmrs" - Fall Out Boy Happy Thanksgiving!

Zombies are nothing new, of course. From the seminal Night of the Living Dead and its many imitators to more recent reincarnations, in film, books, and video games, including Shaun of the Dead , the Resident Evil video game and movie series, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies , and Zombieland , zombies resonate strongly with readers, gamers, and movie-goers today, as much as any other horror figure, even the vampire. To this tradition, you can add Amelia Beamer's entertaining and hip The Loving Dead . The novel achieves that all too rare measured treatment of subject matter that too often ends up over the top. A modern retelling of the zombie apocalypse, The Loving Dead starts off as an ordinary, plausible story about young people in San Francisco and then shifts when one of the characters gets sick and turns into a zombie. As the infection spreads and more and more people become zombies, Beamer keeps the focus on a small group of characters, who head to Alcatraz in a desperate ef...

Dear Random House , My daughter absolutely loves your Step into Reading toddler book Super Friends: Flying High . Unfortunately, as of this writing, there are no other Level 1 Step into Reading superhero books in the series and few books overall featuring strong female heroines. I think it would be really great and empowering if you followed up the first book with a Level 1 Super Friends book featuring Wonder Woman. I know, there are Barbie and Disney Princess titles, but I believe Wonder Woman is galvanizing in ways those characters aren't. And  Wonder Woman has a new look and costume that is well-suited for a new generation of girls. I tried to send you feedback about this using your Feedback link but the form did not submit correctly. Then I considered pitching the idea to you, but you made it quite clear on your FAQs that you only deal with agents. "Like most big publishers, Random House only accepts manuscripts submitted by an agent--the volume of mat...

Have you ever had to work around a company rule or policy that prevented you from doing your job effectively? Ever used non-company software and tools to get things done? Or reached out to a co-worker to skirt a dumb work process? If so, than Hacking Work is your kind of book. Hacking Work is all about the rising tide of benevolent hacking at work and the people who bypass corporate-centered systems in favor of efficient, user-centered approaches. The text is not anti-work or anti-business. On the contrary, it's about saving business from itself and reintroducing effeciency and human innovation back into the workplace. Because, ultimately, if your organization is not as effective and flexible as it can be, a competitor down the street or across the world will be. Fortunately, the maturation of available software today, including loads of free, open-source options and the proliferation of social media, make it easier than ever to introduce hacks that create efficiencies and be...

My story Costumed won the 13th Annual Saugus.net Halloween Ghost Story Contest . The story has been posted on the Saugus.net site and on my site at www.ravenweb.net/writing/costumed/ (different formatting and background color).

Today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday. While she passed earlier this year, she's still very much with me. As I celebrate her birthday and life today, I thought it fitting to share some of my memories of her with others. The following was originally presented as a eulogy at my mother's funeral on April 6, 2010. ## The temperature was 81° degrees when I got to the hospital on Friday afternoon, shortly after I received a call that my mother’s condition had taken a serious turn for the worse. It felt like a collision of opposites: my mom on her deathbed and a beautiful and unseasonably sunny day. But then I remembered how much my mother used to love being outside and it all began to make sense. Whether it was planting or pruning, weeding or walking, or just enjoying the sunshine or a mild breeze, my mom came alive when she was outside.  So it was no surprise that my mother’s last day was also the warmest day of the year to date. It was as if the Earth and all of...

Excuse me one second while I send a message to my past self from 10 years ago: "Drop everything and go west and get a job at this new company Zappos." Delivering Happiness is probably the most authentic business book I've ever read. It's not that the book tells the origin story of one of the coolest, most innovative companies (Zappos) in the country, although it certainly does that. It's not all the sound business advice and lessons imparted from Tony Hsieh, although there's plenty to consider in these pages. It's not even that the book is inspiring, although it definitely will make you believe that anything is possible again. All those good elements aside, the book really resonated and stood out for me because every bit of it felt genuine and real. Tony Hsieh made the decision not to use an editor, and it really paid off. I felt no degrees of separation when reading this -- instead, the reading experience was intimate, as if the author was writing to...

Richard Leider has spent much of his professional life interviewing older adults over the age of 65 and asking them about their lives. Most people, the author noted, expressed that a feeling of purpose was vitally important to them. The subjects also expressed that they would have been clearer about purpose earlier in their life if they could live it over again. On the surface, this makes perfect sense. We all want to live for something and for our lives to have meaning. Right? But if so, then why do only 20% of employees today report feeling passionate about what they do, as thinker and writer John Hagel contends? Where's the purpose? Leider provides some guidance about what we're missing and what may help by examining the importance of purpose in The Power of Purpose . Unlike some texts that promise to fix everything that ails us, The Power of Purpose is more like a lamp, casting light in a previously darkened room so we can see the disheveled mess for what it is. The...

One month ago, I'd never heard of Alan Webber. Today, I'm telling everyone I know to read his insightful and accessible  Rules of Thumb . For those who haven't heard of Alan Webber, he is the co-founding editor of Fast Company Magazine , and a former managing editor of the Harvard Business Review . Rules of Thumb gathers all the lessons and pivotal stories he has learned through forty years of working in the public and private sectors. For example, Rule #9 tells us that "Nothing Happens Until Money Changes Hands", while Rule #45 reminds us that "Failure Isn't failing. Failing Is Failing to Try". For each rule, Webber tells us a story, of how he came by the rule and what he learned in the process. The result is a fascinating and provocative text that's both a guidebook for business and entrepreneurs and also a revealing glimpse into the "value of experience and observation". You can learn more about  Rules of Thumb  and Alan Web...

Earlier this year, I blogged about Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn . I mentioned that the text effectively revealed the widespread plight of women in the developing world, and issued a clear call for change through awareness and action. Meg Wirth is one of those people who's responded to the call and is helping save lives. When Meg learned that pregnancy is a leading cause of death among women of childbearing age in the developing world (because so many women, quite simply, bleed to death), she took action and founded Maternova , an online marketplace for safe and simple birthing technologies. Conceived as a media platform, Maternova is now focusing on core questions of supply and distribution. What effective, low-cost tools (in development or on the market) can save mothers' and newborns' lives in low-resource settings? How and where should global health innovators direct their efforts? In low-resource areas, where do the facilities exist that ca...

I received a number of emails in response to my review of Maryn McKenna's Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA . One of the most interesting and informative was from a microbiologist with direct experience working with Staph aureus and MRSA. I was grateful for the email and asked the individual if I could reproduce the comments here. The microbiologist has kindly given me permission to reproduce those comments, but has asked that it be anonymous. I hope you find the information as revealing and helpful as I did. ## "I am a microbiologist. I wanted to assure you that Staph aureus and MRSA are the major pathogens that we isolate from wound cultures. Staph aureus is not always MRSA, but MRSA is seen in many of our wound cultures. We see several per day. It seems that the diagnosis I have noticed on some of the cultures with Staph aureus is “spider bite”. Apparently this must be what it looks like when the infection is starting. We do those screening cultures where patient...

Kay Nou is a fascinating new blog by my next door neighbors. Take a visit and you'll be treated to all manner of opinions on a wide range of topics, including running, teaching, law, food, Buffalo and Western New York, and Haiti. With 46 blog posts in September alone, they produce a steady amount of content that rewards repeat visits (or an RSS subscription). Just to put that in perspective, prior to this post, I managed 46 posts on this blog for the entire calendar year . Visit Kay Nou: http://kaynou.wordpress.com/

All companies need creation myths, and if one doesn't exist, it's probably necessary to invent one. It's unclear how much of The Social Network is fact and how much is exaggerated and fictionalized, but it doesn't really matter as David Fincher's film succeeds as a compelling story of a smart but irreverent college student who doesn't quite fit in at Harvard but pounces and executes the right idea at the right time. The results speak for themselves as Facebook has become the number one social network site in the world. I enjoyed the film and especially appreciated the balanced treatment of Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). He comes across neither as a sympathetic figure nor as a villain, but somewhere in between, and mostly as a lonely and sometimes angry kid who desperately wants to fit in. This flailing coupled with his savvy at building innovative web applications (first MP3 software, than the infamous Facemash, and, finally, Facebook), leads to an unexpecte...

Copyright and fair use have become confusing and confounding. Not only is it unclear today what exactly we can copy and create, but it seems incredulous that record companies and movie studios would resort to suing children. In Remix , Lawrence Lessig cuts through the confusion and details how American copyright laws have ceased to perform their original role of protecting artistic creation and allowing artists to build on previous creative works. Today, Lessig contends, digital technologies make it as easy for media artists to remix, as it does for writers to quote from other sources. Unfortunately, such remixing is in violation of the current laws and creates a stifling climate for creativity. Lessig stridently argues against the continuation of such a limited "read only" culture and suggests five major changes to our copyright laws: Deregulation of amateur creativity Opt-in copyright Simplification of the copyright laws Decriminalizing copying Decriminalizing file...

I previously mentioned that I'd be blogging about many of the fascinating speakers and innovative organizations I was exposed to at BIF6 . SeeClickFix advances a civic Internet through progressive technology and social media. Basically, SeeClickFix allows anyone to report and track local community problems to government officials and the media via the internet. Think about it. You're driving through your downtown and see a pothole. You take a picture with your cell phone and use a mobile phone app to send the picture through SeeClickFix. The picture and issue is logged on the site, and the governing (transportation or city works) agency receives an alert about the problem. I'm fascinated by the concept and eager to hear from others if they've used the service and if it's been effective in their communities.

I had the good fortune to attend the Business Innovation Factory's annual summit this year in Providence, RI. The conference featured more than two dozen innovators who took the stage and told stories demonstrating their passion, creativity, smarts and discipline to get things done in new and valuable ways. Think TED , but on a more intimate scale, and with a clear focus on business and social innovation. I found the event absolutely exhilarating and fascinating. Almost a week removed now, and I still can't stop thinking about it. Look for follow up posts in this space about some of the speakers and stories featured at BIF-6