It’s the middle of July in North Carolina and day or night, going outside to do more than taking out the trash will result in very damp clothes.   Damp from the latent humidity, personal perspiration, or the frequent thundershower.

No matter how many hours I put in my day, the churn and burn of dealing with tactical situations is sapping my progress in taking over the world.  Once upon a time I was told that career was more akin to a marathon than the 100 yard dash.  Plan and act accordingly.   Understandable, but often difficult to accept.

The pad for my new workshop has been curing silently for the last couple of months, and sometime in the next several weeks, a tractor trailer or two are going to show up with all the steel, doors, and insulation for the building.   I’ve been doing some work on the crane, getting it ready to unload the trucks and in shape to put up the building. 

Like many, I have listened passively to news of the sub-prime mortgage melt down, seemingly secure in the wisdom of the 30 year fixed rate mortgage and home equity line of credit.  Today, I received email that my mortgage lender’s assets were seized by the FDIC, as IndyMac becomes the 3rd largest institution to fail at 32 Billion.  Good fortune was with me as I had just written myself a check from the HELOC to pay for the new shop the week prior, and none too soon, so it would seem.  

How many of us go through each day thinking that news is what happens to other people?

Surprising myself  by making several strong assertions during conversations over the weekend, I realized I’ve been giving some thought to our rising oil and fuel prices and the broader price inflation and economic downturn they are creating.

The situation does not appear to be by intelligent design, as I don’t believe anyone, even oil company execs would agree that it is sustainable.   If you ever played ‘Monopoly’ as a child, or with your children, you realize that more of the fun of the game comes from the free enterprise give and take early in the game, when properties can be acquired and money is traded between players.  The latter phases of the game are perhaps less fun, when a player has prevailed and owns almost all the squares on the board.  Movement of other players is constrained to the point that each roll of the dice no longer provide any hope of recovery, but reflect only that inevitable slide to bankrupcy.  While that may be the point of the boardgame, it is not the way the world works. 

I find the soundbites on the TV particularly aggrevating as the media provides information that leads viewers to perhaps conclusions of dubious validity.  Several of these were evidenced in the opinions of those I spoke with recently.  I’ll enumerate a few here, and welcome those with compelling facts to challenge.

1) Why doesn’t everyone just swith to diesel and run off used french fry oil ?

I’ve seen several feature stories of inventive individuals who converted an old Chevy van and drove accross the country on waste oil.   Well, the issue is the scarcity of the waste oil.   I worked at a particular fast food burger chain in during my senior year of high school.  We had 4 fryers in the restaurant, each held about 5 gallons of oil.  We filtered the oil daily to remove the small bits of french fries that slowly turned brown-black, but only changed the oil once per week.  That would yield about 20 gallons, or maybe enough for one car for a week’s worth of driving.   How many restaurants are there?  Now, how many cars.  In reality this would only work for a handful of people in each community.

2) Why not E85 ?  

Well, we have E85, and the 85% alcohol content provides a lower energy density that the corresponding amount of gasoline, which means that you have to burn more of it to go the same distance.   It is sold at a discount to normal gas today, and is a break even proposition at present.  However, we are using a realatively small amount of it today, and are overlooking the impacts to soil, the feed crops / food stocks, and the ability to absorb crop production short falls due to drought, flooding or other natual disasters.   As it stands, we are pumping a fairly consistent and reliable volume of oil daily.  Just this year in the US, over 10% of the corn crop was wiped out due to flooding in Iowa.   If we were 100% dependent on E85, and lost 10% of the ingredient that makes up 85% of the product we would have a significant shortfall.  The resulting price run up would be catastrophic and there would likely be scarcity - rationing or no availability.

3) It’s a supply and demand problem. 

We need to use less.   Perhaps, but I’ve recently seen behavior in other monopoly commodities that suggest consuming less in decrease demand and increase supply does not necessarily lower the price.  Recent restrictions reduced water usage in a local municipality by 20%, but this led to a revenue shortfall, so the rates were increased to make up the difference.  People used less, and the prices went up.  I think this would be the same in the oil and gas industry.  Why?  These companies are publically traded, and stocks only go up if there is an expecation that earnings will continue to rise, improving the P/E ratio.   If investors believe the company is likely to plateau in earnings, there is no reason to hold the stock - time to sell and move to something else more likely to increase in value.  (I’m discounting investment strategies that short the market and make money on decline)   So, the oil companies will look for ways to grow revenue year over year - this can either be through organic growth of more usage in more markets, or through price increases.  All factors equal, if we use less, we will most likely pay more.

4) We need to end our dependence on foreign oil.  

Well, perhaps, but in a controlled way, and not for the widely held notion that this will reduce prices at the pump.   Let’s take the last point first.   If our nation’s oil and gas industry were run by the government, then perhaps what was pumped here, could be sold here, and the costs of the supply chain controlled to minimize mark up at each phase, from extraction to refining to transport and distribution, to end sales.  In that case, perhaps we could realize benefits from switching to 100% domestic supply.   However, the supply chains are not government controlled, and sell into the prevailing market, which means that the oil companies would sell into the markets where there is demand, and they can make the most profit.    Why would sell here for $2 gallon when you could get $3, $4, $5 elsewhere?   National security interests could be a legitmate reason to try to secure greater domestic production capacity, but only if the end use of that resource were controlled.

Now let’s look at the other aspect.  What if the nations of the world suddenly developed another energy source, or were somehow able to domestically provide their own oil?  What would the impacts be to many middle eastern countries whose number #1 export and major driver of their GNP is oil?   Suppose their income were to dry up, and they had not developed other methods of producing revenue?    There would likely be social unrest, joblessness, poverty, crime, and open conflict.   These latter scenarios would require large expenditures of humaitarian resources, and perhaps additional military deployments.  By design, those nations whose primary income is from oil will need a transition strategy before either the oil runs out, or dependent nations develop an alternative.   This has to be considered and managed carefully, which is why I don’t believe we could truly end our dependence on foreign oil today, even if we had the means to do so.  

In summary, I’m disappointed that our world is led by politics instead of science, and that the media doesn’t ask or demand the full disclosures in the stories put forth.  I think we are doing ourselves a great disservice with these misleading soundbites being broadcast to the masses.

I’d like to see the end to end oil from the ground to the gas pump supply chain diagramed out.  How could this be re-engineered to have fewer steps and less cost mark up?   I’d like to see a study about the additional electricity required if everyone drove plug in rechargable vehicles for their daily commutes.  Do we have the power generation capacity to support this?  What would be the result of the increased demand in utility pricing?  How would states make up for the revenue that comes from gas taxes?  Would our milage be tracked and taxed on a annualized basis?

Lastly, I see the PR commercials from the oil companies with molecules floating around in the background while an actor in a lab coat tells us about the breakthroughs they are working on for a cleaner and brighter tomorrow.   Is it truly in the interest of these companies to quickly develop an alternative, and what is the motivation to deliver that alternative at the best price possible?  Wouldn’t a startup business, under pressure to get a product to market and establish positive revenue be more likely to deliver in the near term?  What are those companies, and why are they not being reported on and actively featured for public investment?

Agree upon the rules before you get into the content -decide how to decide up front.  I learned that once upon a time in a class about leading groups of people involved in decision making…

Now suppose you are monitoring and scoring customer comments for your brand, ACME Acorns.  You have devised a clever strategy to categorize the comments and to score them as positive, negative, nuetral, or mixed views,  with regard to your Acorns.

You need to establish some rules before you start looking at the data.  Why?   What tends to happen is that when you look at the data, you will start rationalizing the relative merit of some of the comments.  I’m going to throw this one out because this person doesn’t have an Acorn.   And this one, well it’s not that negative, maybe it’s really mixed.  This one seems kinda positive - they didn’t say anything bad.  Is that neutral or positive?  Do they really have to gush about our Acorns to be positive, or just say they are ok?  It goes on.  Pretty soon, one has colored the data with their own personal point of view - for better or worse.

Then you show the data to someone else and the issues compound.  They are concerned by the negatives and want to take action  to rectify them - you show the specific comments and many seem less credible, perhaps even suspect, so it’s tempting to toss them out, and to concentrate efforts on those that seem qualified in one regard or another.    And it goes on.  Pretty soon, one begins to wonder if any progress is being made, or if all the improvements are simply due to exclusions, rationalized re-scoring, or other biased and preferential treatments of the data.

I think fundamentally, one has to set some ground rules before they are tempted to rationalize in degrees.  Let the rules guide the activity.   Also, one needs to decide the purpose of the monitoring and scoring - is it to represent a fair sample of what is in the public domain, and  visible influence to all who see it, or to only reflect a smaller qualified, and credible subset of the broader material?  In either case, it is important to share the scoring rules and rationale along with the results when presented.

So, let’s hear from any practitioners out there who find me through search.  What’s in your rulebook?

 How many of you have reached that point of sheer frustration with some cube dwelling, mouth breathing denizen who is using up the very oxygen that you may well need tomorrow, and this sad state of affairs has led you to abandon all diplomacy and lambaste them via email with a substantial audience on carbon copy for effect?

This happened to me today.  I reached the end of my rope, and I might add that it took almost nine months to reach it.   Who knew I had that much rope?

Will see what kind of a crater exists tomorrow when I log in, and wonder if I’ll spend the day fending off the counter offensive or trying to fill it back up with dirt before anyone else notices.

So,  anyone out in bloggerville lob an email grenade and wonder why there is no “unsend” option on the system?   If so, what were the circumstances of your most memorable missive… ?

I awoke this morning to the sound of our malamute mix barking out an exchange with some other dog in the distance.   The number of barks, the timing, and the characteristics of each varied, yet seemed purposeful.    Some started out rather guttural - a bit of a hesitant growl turned bark, while others were shorter and more abrupt sounds uttered in combination.  After each set of barks, the dog would seem to pause and await the response.

This pattern seemed to suggest the barking was more deliberate than mere utterance of random sounds in that it was varied, patterned, and because it appeared to coincide with the response from the distant dog.

Human language translation tools have proliferated online - Babel fish,  Systran, and countless more …

I wonder if enough animals of a certain species - dogs, cats, etc were studied - their behaviors captured on video and their utterances digitized - could we borrow from the principles of cryptography to divine their language? 

Perhaps such an effort could be led by researchers at a university, and organized and powered via the internet.   A web site could established as a global base of operations, a template for data capture could be downloaded, and audio / video samples submitted.    The data could then be parsed and tagged for pattern matching.  Some members of the community could collaborate with the research leads to develop the algorithms to run against the data.  

Perhaps more broadly, what is the next phase of organized human co-operation online, beyond all the loose association of social networks that comprise “Web 2.0″?  Think grid computing, but with people.  What site, tool, or structural concept could meaningfully organize and harness the collective creativity and intellect of humanity in some focused problem solving?

Never turn your back on the ocean - you never know what big wave might be sneaking up on you.

Somethings work out like we imagine, but the truth for me is that no matter how much I imagine, envision, and plan, I only seem to consider some part of the whole.  One side of the coin. 

Two years ago, I thought working with customers online was such a brilliant thing to get into.  Instant access to an unlimited pool of information, all available in real time.   I could interact - touch them, and solve issues.  

Why did I imagine that the public would regulate themselves to a manageable flow?   Why did I think they would only come in the doors and windows I opened for them, rather than creating more than a few themselves?

It’s not the work, it’s the anxiety of what’s waiting for me in my various inboxes - what’s been posted hither and yon that the world is now reading.  Perhaps it has to do with my delusion of having some form of control.   Falling into the trap of expecting / desiring things to work a certain way, it’s easy to get wrapped up in worry and micro-mangement.   I haven’t learned to turn that off at the end of the work day, and it’s something I need to learn to do in order to live in the moment outside of work.

Maybe we should consult the SNL writers on our next viral play…

I think so - they are a reflection of our ego in so many ways.  Not ego, as in inflated sense of self worth, although that may be true in many cases.   No, I’m thinking ego, id, the basics of our physche.

I contemplated a blog I followed regularly and noted that it reflects it’s author - it sounds smart because it is,- it reflects big thinking and from one post to the next, one never knows what might appear.   I reflected at length upon my conversations with this person - intelligent, unconventional, and likely to pop out a non-sequitor as might  Christopher Walken. 

I considered my own blog - several recurring themes present, all fairly narcissistic.  Behind it all there may be a faint hint of linearity in the chronicling of change.  Perhaps my personality seems to value that - reveling in seeing things being built, moving against entropy.  My last post recaps 17 months of intermittent work toward an end goal.  It’s kinda neat to see that all come together, to click through the various still frames in the journey along the way.  I can see the change in the project, but also in my thinking.

Perhaps my blog will help me with a look at how I’m presenting myself, what I appear to be about.  Is this what I’m about?  Perhaps the real value would come from being able to look back and see how my thinking changed, evolved….

Yes, I think the blog reflects the individual, and uniquely so.  Perhaps that may become a defining qualitative characteristic - the fidelity with which the blog reflects the blogger.

Perception of the passage of time is relative - time flies when your having fun.   It is difficult to believe that we worked on this drystack stone fireplace for about 17 months at intervals.  We started in January 2007, and then I provided updates at some intervals along the way.  At the One year point, I was only half way along, testament to the fact that I found plenty of other things to work on instead.  Over the holiday break at the end of 2007 , I made time to work on this in earnest and moved past the 2/3 way point.  By March of 2008, the end of the project was within reach and I began to have mixed feelings about crossing the finish line.  The scaffolds, rising in height along with the stone became a visual barometer of success, much like those thermometer charts that the teacher used to color in red marker back in school to measure progress for the big fund raiser.  After a while however, they became less of a measure of success and more a reflection of procrastination.  It was time to wrap the project up.

This past weekend, the final stones were maneuvered into place along the ceiling, the various smudges and smears of mortar were dissolved off the stone with strong acid, and the scaffolding was struck.  The assorted boxes, tools, and stored household items were cleared away.  The plastic we had covered the carpet with had only partially held the grey cement dust at bay.  Much vacuuming was required, and the odd geometric impressions in the carpet left by the contents of the room are slowing fading.

Now to find a suitable set of glass doors and screens for the front of this, and as the heat of summer approaches, ironically, our fireplace will finally be ready for use.   Sigh.  It will be nice this winter, and in the meantime, we will finally be able to use the living room for something besides warehouse space.

We wrapped up day 2 of the conference with presentations from other community managers, and then I had an opportunity to talk about our efforts.    As I was the last presenter before a much needed coffee break, I kept my remarks short.

Over lunch, I chatted with the CEO of the company that hosted the conference, and young man in his early 30’s.   The conference wrapped, and some of us elected to visit the company and tour the facilities.   A rare opportunity to see new products under development and to spitball ideas with the developers.    Rubbing shoulders with many super bright people, I had no delusions about being the smartest guy in the room.  Yet, I found a few of my ideas were well received and the developers scribbled them down.  Maybe one or two will make it through into production.

Another great dinner with a couple remaining community managers, then my client rep drove us to the airport.  I caught a 10:40 pm red eye flight back home and arrived about 8:35 Friday morning.   I chose the flight partly out of necessity for the schedule and also partly for the experience of knowing what that was like.   Suffice it to say I don’t want a job in which I would frequently find myself in coach for more than about 2 hours.  Six hours of having my knees unknowingly crushed by the person ahead of me who had reclined his seat was about five and a half hours too long.

All told, the trip was more than I could have hoped for.  I return with new ideas for revolution, and also the clear understanding that what I’ve achieved so far constitutes a good start.