Seth Godin on how work and meeting dynamics have shifted due to the proliferation of Powerpoint-driven content:

If you have something to show us, send it before the meeting. If there’s a memo, we can read it in advance, or afterward. In fact, if the memo is really important, simply pause the meeting while we all take two minutes to read it. We know how to read.

I’ve been doing this for a while and find the most productive meetings start with a detailed pre-read. Give people the appropriate context before the meeting so they can come prepared to discuss the topic intelligently, ask the tough questions, and make the most informed decisions.

A meeting brief or memo requires people to read (a fleeting skill, I know!), but reading requires people to think and comprehend and formulate thought. And those are the things we want, er need, informing our work.

Tante pulls no punches in this blistering critique that likens “AI” to a fascist, political, borderline-religious project with a mission to shift power & agency away from people and organizations toward centralized power structures. This mission is often rooted in violence:

The first form of violence “AI” depends on is the violence of data acquisition: “AI” depends on scraping and accumulating all you can get – including taking against people’s explicit will and without their consent.

This is must-read for anyone thinking critically about AI and/or working to subvert it.

Anil Dash explores why NASA published the Artemis II photos on Flickr, of all places:

By having the public’s images preserved in an independent archive in standard formats, we increase the likelihood of future generations being able to access accurate copies of these historical records.

As I get older, cultural memory and the long-tail archive of our digital lives is on my mind. This site serves as that personal archive for me, and at individual scale, it works. I manage the infrastructure, pay the bills and nurture its development.

Anil makes the good point that at institutional scale, self-hosting is often not a viable option. NASA is naturally more concerned with flying humans into space than managing a website, so the outsourcing of this archive to a responsible, ethical 3rd party is the wise choice, if not the only choice.

I’m glad Flickr is still here and they’ve made commitments to cultural longevity with archival intent. We need more platforms to think this way to ensure the cultural artifacts we’ve been producing for the last several decades remain accessible for generations to come.

Scott Belsky writes about the promise and vitality of ‘Superhumanity’ in a world that’s becoming ever-obsessed with artificial intelligence. Several of the ideas in this piece resonate with me.

First, I think Scott’s definition of taste as a combination of INPUTS, FILTERS and DISCERNMENTS is really smart. As AI evolves, humans will remain tastemakers. How we lean into the experiences we seek out (INPUTS), the things we actively choose to ignore (FILTERS) and the decisions we make (DISCERNMENTS) based on our inputs and filters will be the key to thriving in a post-AI world.

He rightly points out that establishing human taste will not be enough. We will need to activate our human agency to act upon our tastes. This often resembles – and in the post-AI world it should continue to resemble – audacity. Our human-centric audacity that we can achieve the impossible or be the first to accomplish something. AI can only know the past, but humans can envision a future.

I also thought his jazz-based approach to using AI is unique and worth considering:

You must engage AI with flexibility rather than having a fully formed sonata in your head and no willingness to deviate from it. You must discover the “instruments” AI is best at, and you must complement AI with what it lacks - your taste, agency, and natural human tendencies.

I highly recommend this piece, as well as Scott’s other writing, for anyone who thinks critically about technology and our human experience living with it.

The ringer was off, but the sudden vibration was jarring. It was the fourth such vibration in as many minutes. The buzzing phone, lying face down on my desk sent tremors through my forearms as those muscles powered keystrokes from my hands.

This particular notification was a mother on Adeline’s soccer team alerting the team chat app that her daughter wouldn’t be at training that evening. The three previous notifications included a retail store marketing an upcoming sale, a mention from Mastodon, and a text message from my health provider requesting feedback from a recent visit.

Four disruptions in four minutes, my phone had become an unforgiving foghorn. These four minutes were not a one-time exception. Never-ceasing notifications had become the rule – my reality – over time. Once deliberate and discerning with the tentacles I allowed to dictate my attention, my guard had eroded and they were slipping through like seepage.

I’m not sure what it was about these four notifications or this particular four minute window, but they created an awareness toward how these FOMO-driven flechettes have been impacting my presence with and focus on the tasks, ideas and people immediately before me. I noticed myself feeling splintered in this moment. Pulled apart. Traction lost.

In this instant of self realization, I opened the settings on my phone, disabled all notifications except for text messages and phone calls from my immediate family, and saved these changes as a custom focus option I now call Mental Hygiene. This has been my default in recent weeks and it’s improved my quality of life greatly.

FOMO – or fear of missing out – is an interesting cultural abstraction. Technology has conditioned us for speed, constant reachability and the need to always be aware of the latest updates, otherwise we’re left behind.

But filtering out unwanted noise is not being left behind. It is prioritizing attention on what matters. It’s protecting a level of focus that becomes rarer with each new notification and version update.

We should not fear of missing out. Instead, let’s normalize a freedom of missing out. A freedom to let the insignificant and immaterial slide into the ether unnoticed. A freedom to be bored or reflective. A freedom that honors stillness and slowness. A freedom that empowers a focused mind, time spent with meaning, and whole presence in any given moment.

The WiFi unexpectedly went out at my house last Friday. It was completely random — working fine one minute, then zero connectivity the next. I restarted my router a few times and checked all my connections. No luck. I couldn’t spend much time troubleshooting because I was on a deadline for work, so I left the house and worked the remainder of the day from a neighborhood coffee shop.

The technical issue that brought down the WiFi isn’t important. What’s important is that it was something I couldn’t fix myself and the provider needed to send out a technician to resolve it. The extra-important part is that they couldn’t put us on the schedule until the following Tuesday. This meant we’d have no internet at home for five days.

As an elder millennial, the thought of an offline extended weekend excited me. I remember well, and often long for, pre-internet living. This wasn’t the case for my 13-year-old who lives on YouTube or my 18-year-old ESPN freak who was on his way home from Penn State (they were on a bye) to visit for the weekend.

What transpired over those few offline days was special. Yes, our phones still had cellular connections, so we weren’t completely disconnected. But lack of WiFi meant our laptops remained closed, our tablets untouched, and our smart TVs dark.

Instead, we spent quality time together, mostly outside. We built a fire. We made margaritas. We took a few family walks with the dog. We cooked a Sunday football feast and watched the game using an antenna. We looked each other in the eye as we talked, and it was nice.

Those five days reinforced for me that life feels richer when I’m not constantly plugged in. Sometimes absence can create space for much needed presence. When Tuesday came and the technician completed his work, I was almost reluctant to reconnect because I now realize the connectivity I’d been missing wasn’t the WiFi at all.

Big tech has built machines designed for one thing: to hold your attention. The algorithms don’t care what keeps you scrolling. It could be puppy videos or conspiracy theories about election fraud. They only care that you keep consuming. And unfortunately nothing keeps people engaged quite like rage.

The executives at these companies will tell you they’re neutral platforms, that they don’t choose what content gets seen. This is a lie. Every algorithmic recommendation is an editorial decision. When YouTube’s algorithm suggests increasingly extreme political content to keep someone watching, that’s editorial. When Facebook’s algorithm amplifies posts that generate angry reactions, that’s editorial. When Twitter’s trending algorithms surface conspiracy theories, that’s editorial.

They are publishers. They have always been publishers. They just don’t want the responsibility that comes with being publishers.

For years, these companies have hidden behind Section 230 protections while operating more like media companies than neutral platforms. They’ve used recommendation algorithms to actively shape what billions of people see every day, then claimed they bear no responsibility for the consequences. It’s like a newspaper publisher claiming they’re not responsible for what appears on their front page because they didn’t write the articles themselves.

We need to be honest about what these algorithms are doing to our democracy. They’re not just amplifying existing divisions, they’re creating new ones. They’re not just reflecting polarization, they’re manufacturing it. Every time someone opens one of these apps, they’re being shown content specifically chosen to provoke an emotional response. That’s not neutral. That’s manipulation.

This isn’t a technology problem. This is a business and choice problem. These companies could change their algorithms tomorrow to prioritize accuracy over engagement, community over conflict, human wellbeing over profit. They choose not to because extremism is more profitable than moderation.

The solution isn’t to ask nicely for these companies to do better. We tried that. The solution isn’t to hope users will abandon these platforms en masse. That won’t happen as long as the network effects keep people trapped.

The solution is regulation. Real regulation. Not the performative theater we’ve seen in congressional hearings, but actual laws with actual consequences.

We need algorithmic transparency. These companies should be required to disclose how their recommendation systems work and what content they’re amplifying.

We need algorithmic accountability. When an algorithm recommends content that leads to violence, there should be consequences. And we need algorithmic choice. Users should have the right to see chronological feeds, not just algorithmically curated ones designed to manipulate their emotions.

Most importantly, we need to end the liability shield these companies hide behind. If you’re going to operate as a publisher, making editorial decisions about what content gets amplified, then you should face the same legal responsibilities as any other publisher.

Turn off the internet. Or fix it. Those are the only choices we have left. The time for hoping these companies will self-regulate is over. The time for treating algorithmic manipulation as an inevitable part of modern life is over. We know what these systems do. We know who they hurt. The only question left is whether we’re going to do something about it.

Letter Club, a new project from Naz Hamid and Scott Robbin, looks very cool. From Naz’s announcement post:

Not physical letters, but digital letters that arrive with traditional mail’s rhythm. It’s a private group newsletter that everyone contributes to and receives. It’s intentionally slow, purposeful, and deeply gratifying — a low-stress, high-signal way to stay connected that creates meaningful moments in a social world dominated by drive-by likes and fleeting attention.

I love this concept and I’m thinking of a number of cool topics worth exploring in this small group format:

• A record club where we share new additions to our collections
• An adventure club that shares highlights and recaps of running, cycling, hiking or climbing endeavors
• A BBQ club focused on smoker & grill experiments and recipes

If one of these ideas resonates with you, hit me up. Awesome stuff, Naz and Scott!

Update: I created a club called Get in My Earholes that asks the question, “What’s the best record you’ve added to your collection recently?” Feel free to join the club…first letter goes out on 8/9 and then every 2 weeks after that.

Not to get morbid, but turning 47 yesterday started me thinking about the persistence and legacy of this site if I were to suddenly get gone. One of the main purposes of StaticMade.com for me is to leave a public mark or a detailed record of my time, thoughts and consciousness while on this planet. How might I ensure it persists if something unforeseen happens?

Coincidentally today, Manton (founder of Micro.blog, the platform I use to publish Static Made) posted some information about his policy on scenarios of subscription lapses and untimely death:

If you have ever paid for hosting with us, and you haven’t violated our terms of service or community guidelines, we keep your blog online forever, even after you’ve stopped paying for your subscription.

I think this is a very proactive and generous policy. So as long as there is a plan for domain management, the site should remain online in perpetuity. Thanks Manton!

I dream of a web that’s small and strange and wonderful. Where personal websites grow like gardens – each one unique, crafted by hand, reflecting the beautiful weirdness of its creator. Where the web feels big because it’s made of small, individual voices.

I dream of a web where people own their words. Where our thoughts live on our own property, not rented from a company that can disappear voices on a whim. Where writing exists because you have something to say, not because the appetite of the algorithm demands it.

I dream of a web where linking is loving. Where hyperlinks have power, where blogrolls make comebacks, where discovery happens through human curation rather than manipulation by machines. Where following a thread of links can lead down rabbit holes of genuine fascination.

I dream of a web that respects our attention. Where websites load quickly because they’re not bloated with tracking scripts and surveillance infrastructure. Where reading an article doesn’t trigger an onslaught of analytics events and cookie consent banners. Where the interface serves the content, not the advertiser.

I dream of a web that’s accessible to everyone – not just those who can afford the latest devices or fastest connections. Where sites work on old phones and slow networks because the creators remembered that the web is for everyone, not just the privileged.

I dream of a web where communities form around shared interests rather than shared platforms. Where discussions thrive, where posts feel like letters from friends, where feeds let you choose your own reading rhythm instead of surrendering to an infinite scroll.

I dream of a web that’s built by humans for humans. Where the goal isn’t to automate away human expression through artificial intelligence, but to amplify the unique perspectives that only humans can offer.

I dream of a web that moves at human speed. Where conversations unfold over days and weeks instead of milliseconds. Where depth matters more than virality, and reflection is worth more than reaction. Where you can disappear for a month and come back to find your community still there, still talking, still caring.

I dream of a web where silence is golden. Where not every moment needs to be documented, shared, or optimized for engagement. Where digital sabbaths are respected, where being offline isn’t a productivity failure, where the most profound connections happen when the screens are dark.

I dream of a web that doesn’t just connect our devices, but connects our souls. That doesn’t just transfer data, but transfers meaning.

Pittsburgh-based nonprofit news outlet PublicSource is experimenting with a new printed edition, although not the typical format for which legacy media is known. Taking a page from the underground publishing playbook, PublicSource is releasing neighborhood-focused zines intended to meet communities where they are – at coffee shops, community centers, their neighbor’s home – and create a hyperlocal publication with impact.

Zines are independently published, noncommercial publications that are often handmade and focus on very specific subject matter. They carry a storied history, with some scholars tracing zine lineage back to Thomas Paine’s political pamphlet Common Sense in 1776. The modern era of zine culture in the U.S. was ushered in during the late-19th century’s amateur press movement and carried through the 20th century with help from the Harlem Renaissance, science fiction fandom and punk rock movements.

PublicSource’s foray into zine publication is in the spirit of these previous movements, but also brings with it a reaction to the digiral culture of our day. Halle Stockton on the rationale:

We intentionally chose the zine format: a small, printed publication you can hold, flip through, pass to a friend or tuck into your bag. It’s low-tech and high-touch. It slows you down just a little. It doesn’t ping or scroll. And it doesn’t require an algorithm to find its audience.

There’s something profound in Stockton’s phrase “high-touch.” The tactile experience of paper creates engagement that’s very different from media that’s mediated through a glass screen. The physical act of flipping pages, the inability to hyperlink away to endless distractions, the constraint of finite space – these aren’t limitations. They’re features. They force both writer and reader into a more intentional relationship with the stories.

I think this is an interesting move for a media outlet like PublicSource. Journalism needs to become more local. It needs to connect with people on the issues that directly impact them, their neighbors and their neighborhoods. It’s smart PublicSource considers the zine project to be one element of a broader strategy to “inform and inspire the Pittsburgh region through the power of deep, independent journalism,” because the artisanal nature of the format does raise questions about scalability.

While most of our information these days arrives through algorithmic feeds and endless scroll, there’s something quietly revolutionary about a folded piece of paper that exists entirely outside that system. PublicSource’s zine experiment reminds us that sometimes the most innovative approach is also the most ancient one: putting words on paper and handing them directly to your neighbors.

Whether this model can scale remains to be seen, but perhaps that’s missing the point. Zines were never about scale – they were and continue to be about connection, community, and the radical idea that everyone has a story worth telling. Maybe what modern journalism needs isn’t more reach, but more touch.

I fed Claude some examples of bi-weekly stakeholder updates for products I previously managed. I then asked it to learn the format, understand the tone of the writing, and help me draft a first installment for a new initiative I’m leading. We chatted for a few minutes about the voice I desired, recent progress by the team, and the health of the project. After I provided adequate context, Claude generated a draft for me to review. The initial version was very good and only required a few copy and formatting edits. I was happy with the result and it saved me about an hour this morning.

Note: This post is the first in an ongoing series called How I Used AI Today, inspired by friend and former colleague Beck Tench who does something similar over on LinkedIn. I’m starting to believe the thinking and narrative around generative AI is becoming too binary. The intent of this series is to keep me publicly honest and intellectually responsible with my use of this emerging technology.

The social web is at an inflection point. After years of centralized platforms dominating our digital lives, we’re witnessing a resurgence of alternatives built on open protocols. I believe this is something to celebrate, yet I’ve noticed a recent rift of technologists, developers, and early adopters engaging in debates about which approach is more “pure” or “truly open.”

The Mastodon/ActivityPub camp points to federation and existing implementation. The Bluesky/AT Protocol proponents highlight architectural advantages and planned interoperability. They’re both right and each side has compelling arguments, but they miss a fundamental truth: the web was never meant to be a monoculture.

The early web thrived because it wasn’t beholden to a single implementation or approach. HTTP, HTML, RSS and other foundational web technologies weren’t prescriptive about how they should be implemented. They simply defined interfaces that allowed different systems to communicate. This protocol-first approach created a healthy ecosystem where experimentation was encouraged and diversity was a strength, not a liability.

If today’s web is built in the spirit of the web we were given by its creators, platforms simply shouldn’t matter. Protocols should.

When Tim Berners-Lee gave us the web, he didn’t dictate which software to use or which browser was the “true” implementation. Instead, he offered protocols that allowed for interoperability while encouraging innovation at the edges. The result was a renaissance that transformed human communication. The web we knew and loved.

The challenge we face today isn’t deciding which social platform is more ideologically pure. It’s building systems that return agency, privacy and control to users while maintaining the convenience and network effects that drew people to centralized platforms in the first place.

This isn’t a zero-sum game where one protocol must “win” while others fade away. Let’s take email as an example. Email has thrived for decades with multiple protocols working in concert. Different implementations serve different needs, and the ecosystem is stronger for it.

The real metric of success shouldn’t be which protocol gains dominant market share, but whether users regain control over their digital identities and social connections. Can I own my data? Can I choose which clients I use to access the network? Can I move between providers without losing my social graph? These questions matter far more than whether a particular implementation uses federated servers or a distributed approach.

As someone who’s been thinking about the intersection of technology and human experience for years, I’ve come to believe that technical debates often obscure the more important human questions. In reality normies don’t care whether their social media runs on ActivityPub or AT Protocol — they care about connecting with friends, sharing ideas, and being part of communities.

Perhaps what frustrates me most about the current discourse is how it forces people to choose sides in a battle that shouldn’t exist. The brilliant minds crafting today’s open web are wasting energy fighting each other rather than working together to build alternatives to the centralized offerings from big tech.

What if, instead, we embraced a both/and mindset? What if Mastodon/ActivityPub and Bluesky/AT Protocol were seen as complementary approaches, each with strengths and weaknesses, each contributing to a richer, more resilient social web?

It’s already this way for me. By leveraging the POSSE (Post on your Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere) philosophy via Micro.blog, I am able to post & reply on both Mastodon/Fediverse & Bluesky without ever seeing or touching either platform. Because the underlying protocols for each are well architected and documented, Micro.blog’s creator Manton Reece can build his platform above their protocols. The Ghost blogging platform is heading this direction too. This is the future.

The path forward isn’t choosing between competing visions of openness. It’s embracing the plurality of approaches while insisting on core values of user agency, data ownership, and interoperability. In that spirit, let’s redirect our energy from debating protocols to building the web we want to see — one that’s truly open to everyone, regardless of which particular technical approach gets us there.

In The Ordinary Sacred, Joan Westenberg examines the alternative to a hyper-connected and ultra-performative lifestyle:

We live under systems—economic, cultural, digital—that demand we strive to be impressive. Inspirational. Aspirational. Permanently visible. Permanently performing. Eternally, achingly unsatisfied. We’re trained to ask, before doing anything: Will this make good content? Will this signal something useful? Will this get me closer to who I’m “supposed” to be?

I feel this sentiment in my bones. In my core. It’s a tension I feel pulling at me in surprising moments. Joan’s piece is a longer read, but worthy and relevant one – for me, and I suppose some of you who think similarly about digital culture.

Fifteen years ago, one of my favorite writers Robin Sloan wrote about the concept of “stock and flow” as they relate to digital media. His metaphor, borrowed from economics, distinguished between the ephemeral stream of updates (flow) and the durable lasting content (stock) that builds value over time. I stumbled upon this post again this week, probably through a bit of Mastodon flow, and reading it among today’s modern context feels both prescient and incomplete – prescient because Sloan astutely identifies the emerging tension between immediate engagement and lasting value, and incomplete in that he couldn’t have predicted how dramatically over the coming decade the pendulum would swing toward flow.

The intervening years have seen the rise and dominance of algorithms, short-form video, and endless streams of ephemeral content. These are the feeds we come to know and love¹ . We’ve optimized our digital lives for flow to an extent that would have been hard to imagine in 2010. The “treadmill” Sloan described has become a high-speed conveyor belt, perpetually delivering new content while whisking away anything more than a few hours old.

I’ve noticed something interesting happening, though. As our digital lives have become increasingly dominated by flow, there seems to be a growing hunger for stock – for content with permanence, depth, and lasting value. You can see it. You can feel it. I don’t think it’s just a notion of nostalgia from elder millennials like myself; it’s an emerging & collective awareness that the endless streams often leave us feeling empty and disconnected from what matters. Even my Gen-Z kids tell me this.

In my mind, the open web is the natural home for stock media. While social platforms optimize for ’engagement’ (read: time spent scrolling) and viral spread, the open IndieWeb creates space for content that develops and appreciates over time. Take this post as an example. It’s referencing a blog post from 15 years ago! When you own your platform, you’re free from the tyranny of flow. Your words can find their audience through myriad entry points, through intentional discovery, through the slow build of genuine connection rather than viral mechanics.

This matters because stock isn’t just about content strategy – it’s about how we think, how we create, and how we build understanding over time. When everything is flow, we lose the ability to develop ideas fully, to let thoughts mature and evolve. We sacrifice depth for immediacy, wisdom for novelty.

The open web provides the much needed infrastructure for digital permanence. Through evergreen protocols like hyperlinks and technologies like RSS, we can create connections between pieces of stock content that grow stronger over time. Unlike social platforms where old content effectively disappears, the open web allows ideas to find new audiences months or years after publication.

Now, we can’t reject flow entirely. As Sloan noted as early as 2010, we need both. But these times call for us to consciously rebalance. We need to recognize that some ideas need time to develop and that some conversations are worth having at a human pace rather than an algorithmic one.

I’ve personally experienced this rebalancing since moving my writing to this self-hosted corner of the internet. Free from the pressure to feed the algorithm, I find myself thinking differently about what I create. I’m more willing to let ideas develop over time, to revisit and refine thoughts, to build a body of work that has coherence and permanence.

The economics of stock and flow have shifted too. While flow still dominates attention economy, I think stock increasingly drives genuine interest and lasting value. In a world of generative AI, thoughtful, accurate, nuanced and human-created stock content has (and will) become more valuable, not less.

I believe we are entering a renaissance of stock media on the open web. As more people grow weary of the endless scroll, I think they’ll seek out spaces for deeper engagement and lasting connection. The infrastructure exists – through the basic building blocks of the open web. What’s needed now is a shift in how we think about creation and consumption.

Sloan was right about the importance of balancing stock and flow. What he couldn’t have predicted was how corporate flow would have evolved over those years. He also couldn’t have predicted how the open web would persist over the decades as a natural home for stock, providing both the technical infrastructure and the cultural space for media that endures.

Props to the folx over at The Iconfactory on the release of Tapestry, a unified feed reader that brings together open social platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky, with other sources like RSS and YouTube. The concept of a unified reader like this is interesting to me, but after trying Tapestry, I think I want my social feeds quarantined from my blog/website/RSS feeds.

Simply put: I read Mastodon for a completely different reason than I read RSS.

In Mastodon, I want to favorite, boost and reply to friends, learn what they’re up to and what they think about things. This is done in short order. I’m usually in and out quickly, never spending more than a few minutes cruising the feed. When I come upon an interesting link that requires more time and attention to read, I save it for later in my feed reader of choice Reeder.

Conversely, when I open Reeder, it’s usually for a session. I do this once in the morning and once at night. Blog posts and website articles by nature are longer than social posts, so reading RSS is a conscious decision when I have the capacity to dedicate to longer reading. Even thought Reeder has the ability to unite RSS with open social feeds, I do not utilize this feature.

For me, social feeds are for interaction, while RSS feeds are for deep thinking.

Again, kudos to Tapestry and Reeder for experimenting with feed unification. Perhaps as the feature set grows in each app I will consider migrating over, but for now I will keep my feeds separated.

This post is part of the February 2025 Indieweb Carnival, where Joe Crawford invited us to share personal affirmations - the sayings and mantras that help guide our lives.

Be Here Now. Three simple words that have carried me through the darkest valleys and highest peaks, both literally and figuratively. This mantra, popularized by Ram Dass, has been my companion through unthinkable loss, through ultra-distance runs, and increasingly, through our algorithm-infused world.

I first encountered these words during a period of profound grief, when the weight of loss made both past and future unbearable. The past was too painful to revisit, the future too uncertain to contemplate. Be Here Now became my anchor, a reminder that this moment - just this one - was all I needed to handle. It didn’t make the grief disappear, but it made it manageable, one present moment at a time.

Years later, I found myself returning to these words in a different context: ultra-running. When you’re 40 miles into an ultra, your mind becomes your greatest adversary. It wants to complain about every ache, project how much worse they’ll feel in 10 miles, replay every training run you missed, question every life choice that led you here. But none of that serves you. The only thing that matters is this stride, this breath, this moment. Putting one foot in front of the other. Keep moving forward. Be Here Now. The mantra becomes a rhythm, a meditation in motion, carrying you through the pain cave one step at a time.

Lately, I’ve found new meaning in these words as I navigate what the internet has become. The constant pull of notifications, the endless doomscrolling, the quantified metrics of our lives - they all conspire to pull us away from the present moment. They fragment our attention and scatter our consciousness, leaving us somehow both overstimulated and undernourished.

This led me to make significant changes: deleting corporate social media accounts, self-hosting my online presence, removing my fitness tracker after nearly two decades. Each change was a choice to Be Here Now, to experience life directly rather than through the lens of algorithms and analytics.

The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m sharing these thoughts on a digital platform. But there’s a profound difference between using technology mindfully and letting it use us. The IndieWeb movement itself embodies this distinction - it’s about being present and intentional in our digital lives, rather than passively consuming the algorithmic firehose.

Be Here Now isn’t about rejecting the past or ignoring the future. It’s about recognizing that the present moment is where life actually happens, where we have the power to act, to heal, and to grow. Whether I’m processing grief, pushing through physical or mental limits, or choosing how to engage with technology, these three words remind me to return to the only moment I can truly inhabit.

In a world that increasingly pulls our attention in a thousand directions, being here now is both a challenge and a radical act of self-preservation. It’s an affirmation I return to daily, a compass that always points to this moment, this breath, this now.

I saw this challenge making the rounds last week and thought I’d give it a go. Back in the day, challenges like this were really fun and helped draw connections between interesting corners of the open web. It’s also a productive exercise for me to reflect on blogging as a practice. From what I can discern, we have Ava to thank for kicking this off…so, thanks! Here we go…

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

I came of age during the dawn of the internet in the mid-1990s. At that time the web was like the Wild West. There was an energy about it. It was fresh and new and it was bringing people together in meaningful ways. I wanted so badly to understand how it worked, so I dove deep under the hood of my favorite sites to learn how semantic code generated pages.

From that point on I was hooked, and threw myself into creating my first site – on Geocities. Sunset Strip, represent! This was circa 1996 and blogs hadn’t been invented yet, but I did publish my writing on the Geocities site, so I do consider this my first blog.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?

I currently use Micro.blog to power StaticMade.com. I’m very happy with it and think Manton does a great job developing it.

When I was looking for a platform upon which to relaunch my personal website last year, one of the most important elements for me was to find a platform that embraced the open web. Micro.blog’s simplicity and flexibility, combined with robust feeds integration and on-board syndication to several Fediverse platforms make it the perfect fit for my needs.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Having written on the web since the ’90s, I’ve used my fair share of blogging platforms. To the best of my memory, here they are in chronological order: Geocities, Blogger, Tumblr, Ghost (self-hosted), raw dog HTML files, Ghost (hosted), Micro.blog

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?

Most of the time I use the Micro.blog editor, either on my laptop for longer posts like this one, or in the Micro.blog for iOS app on my phone for shorter or image-based posts. Sometimes I get workflow envy when I read about how some folx have sexy workflows that publish static pages, but writing in the browser gets the job done for me quickly and efficiently. These days I don’t have the time to reinvent my publishing workflow process.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Inspiration comes at the strangest times, doesn’t it? I’ll often see something online – a post or an article – and that can spark the muse. That’s the way this post originated. Other times, posts come from deep reflection about something going on in my life. And yet some other posts are completely spur of the moment. I use those posts as a way to document meaningful or intersting things in real time.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

I always tend to post immediately after writing. I’ll read it over a few times, to catch typos and tweak wording, and then tap publish.

What’s your favourite post on your blog?

One of the first posts I published after relaunching this site in August 2024 was Death to the Algorithm. It’s a manifesto of sorts. I think it does a good job summarizing why I do this and why it’s important.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

I’m happy with Micro.blog and I don’t have any plans to migrate elsewhere, but I’m always tweaking things. Most recently I added a ‘Reply via Email’ button to all posts, as well as a cool feature in the footer that displays the song I’m currently listening to. So I’ll probably continue to ship things like that, along with incremental design updates. The web is never finished!

Jared White articulating quite clearly the biggest obstacle facing the Open Web:

…never before has The Indie Web been such a glorious platform for building anything you might dream of and sharing it with anyone you like, yet never before has The Corporate Web been so awful and damaging to the body politic. I wish I knew how to deal with this cognitive dissonance, and how to convey to mere mortals out there that the The Indie Web is alive and kicking, and that The Corporate Web doesn’t have to define their experience of being online.

The Open Web has a messaging and onramp problem. There’s no shortage of brilliant technical and engineering minds working on it, but where are the designers and product strategists who might craft the ’easy enough’ onramps for those who don’t really give a shit about ActivityPub and just want a healthy, constructive and friendly place to share online? Who is communicating the value of the Open Web in compelling ways and using language non-nerds can comprehend?

The recent growth of Bluesky is proof of a collective appetite for something more. Full disclosure, I don’t think Bluesky is the answer, but they definitely understand the onboarding assignment of making the experience easy without introducing dark patterns (yet).

The foundation for a scalable Open Web is here, thanks to the dedication and great work of the developer community that’s gotten us to this point. But to truly realize the potential and impact a universal open web, we need to augment the engineering focus with two additional legs of the stool: design and product. Only then will we be able to understand the problems and needs of the users who aren’t yet here and build the open, accessible and welcoming web of the future.

In the shifting landscape of our digital commons, the words the leaders of these corporate social platforms use have become shapeshifters, their meanings bending like light through murky water. As we witness the transformation of our shared online spaces, I find myself creating a new dictionary for these times—a translation guide for what remains unsaid.

When they say “free expression,” I want you to hear “the end of community care.”

When they say “algorithmic neutrality,” I want you to hear “the automation of amplified harm.”

When they say “marketplace of ideas,” I want you to hear “a colosseum where truth wrestles with virality.”

When they say “content-neutral platform,” I want you to hear “we’ve chosen profit over protection.”

When they say “open dialogue,” I want you to hear “we’ve removed the guardrails.”

When they say “reduced content moderation,” I want you to hear “we’ve dismissed the digital gardeners.”

When they say “user empowerment,” I want you to hear “you’re on your own now.”

When they say “engagement metrics,” I want you to hear “behavior we can monetize.”

When they say “democratic discourse,” I want you to hear “the loudest voices win.”

When they say “digital town square,” I want you to hear “unmoderated chaos.”

These aren’t just semantic games—they’re the architecture of our new digital reality. Each phrase is another layer between what we’re told and what we experience, between the promise of connection and the practice of division.

I find myself returning to the early dreams of the web, when we imagined digital spaces as gardens to be tended, not markets to be exploited. It’s time to reclaim not just our platforms, but our very language—to speak plainly about what we’re building, what we’re breaking, and what we’re willing to sacrifice in the name of unconstrained growth.

The web I want to inhabit still has gardeners. It still has carpenters and caretakers. It still believes in the power of boundaries to create safety, and the strength of moderation to cultivate community. Most importantly, it still understands that true freedom comes not from the absence of constraints, but from the presence of care.

Even though I’m curious about the potential for AI and exploring small language models (SLMs) at work, it’s stories like Noor Al-Sibai’s reporting for Futurism’s The Byte that give me pause and feed my internal conflict:

OpenAI is begging the British Parliament to allow it to use copyrighted works because it’s supposedly “impossible” for the company to train its artificial intelligence models — and continue growing its multi-billion-dollar business — without them.

To me, this is simple. OpenAI is correct. They can’t continue their growth trajectory without exploiting books, blogs, feeds, websites, images and other content that’s under copyright. This is a flaw in their business model. The machine is hungry and needs to be fed. Public domain content will satiate its hunger for only so long.

But copyright is copyright, and copyrighted works should only be consumed and distributed with the consent of the copyright holder. My advice for folx writing and publishing online? Update your robots.txt files to prohibit crawling from known AI origins. If you need an example, here’s mine.

I’m an techno-optimist. I think we can figure out how to responsibly and ethically leverage AI in our lives. Perhaps the key to doing this is to slow down, and scale down. Take a slow web approach to it. That’s why SLMs are so interesting to me, especially in my specific professional use cases. You can be thoughtful with the application and actively monitor the impact.

I’m interested in your thoughts. Do you think there is any hope for a measured and throttled AI future? Or is this 10x-mindset train already barreling down the tracks toward dystopia?

After two decades of religiously tracking every step, every mile, and every heartbeat, I’ve decided to take off my fitness tracker. My health metrics tracking journey began in the aughts with a Jawbone (remember those?), then evolved to a Fitbit, an early generation Apple Watch, and then most recently to a COROS Apex as I got more serious in my endurance pursuits. The journey has been enlightening, but perhaps not in the way these devices’ makers intended.

For nearly 20 years, I’ve been a dedicated member of the quantified self movement. Most mornings began with checking my sleep quality, each run or ride was meticulously recorded and posted to Strava, and most days ended with a review of my stats. The progression through devices—from the simple step counting of early Fitbits to the comprehensive health suite of the Apple Watch and the endurance-focused metrics of the COROS—reflected my growing appetite for more data, more insights, and more control.

But somewhere along the way, something changed.

I started noticing how the numbers were shaping my behavior, and not always for the better. A relaxed-pace run wasn’t just a chance to enjoy fresh air and sunshine—it was a disappointing pace stat. A rest day wasn’t a conscious choice for recovery—it was an unfortunate break in my activity streak. The quantified self had become my qualified self, where the value of my activities was determined by what my watch thought about them.

The irony wasn’t lost on me: tools that were supposed to help me become more in tune with my body had actually created a layer of digital abstraction between me and my physical experience. I was no longer running to feel good, riding for the freedom and wind in my face or climbing for enjoyment—I was doing these things to feed the algorithms.

This realization led me to question the role of tracking in my life. Was I measuring to help me improve or was I becoming digitally dependent on the metrics? The constant stream of data had overshadowed the simple joy of movement, the natural rhythm of rest and activity, and the intuitive understanding of my body’s needs.

The decision to stop tracking wasn’t easy. My COROS was a loyal companion. It was with me through countless miles, crazy adventures, my first ultra, and with each new bouldering grade. It witnessed my growth as a runner, cyclist and climber, and provided the data that fueled my progress. But sometimes, progress means letting go of the tools that got you here.

Now, when I head out for a run, it’s just me, my breath, and the trail ahead. There’s no GPS track being drawn, no pace alerts buzzing on my wrist, no stats to upload and analyze afterward. It feels both foreign and familiar—like running to a home you’d forgotten you had.

I don’t think this is a total rejection of tracking technology or the quantified self movement. These tools can be incredibly valuable, especially when working toward specific goals or managing health conditions. But perhaps their greatest value lies in teaching us to eventually listen to ourselves again.

As I adjust to this new, untracked existence, I’m rediscovering something that no algorithm could quantify: the simple pleasure of moving through the world, unchanged by sensors and unmediated by screens. It turns out that sometimes the best way to move forward is to leave the numbers behind.

I’ve noticed a lot of talk about hyperlinks lately. A post from Nilay Patel initially caught my attention yesterday and it was followed by a wonderful article from Anil Dash about the ways corporate social media platforms like Substack work hard to co-opt open protocols and keep users inside their respective walled gardens. Key to his argument is the fact that people are now referring to their email newsletters as “their Substacks.” Dash writes:

We constrain our imaginations when we subordinate our creations to names owned by fascist tycoons. Imagine the author of a book telling people to “read my Amazon”. A great director trying to promote their film by saying “click on my Max”. That’s how much they’ve pickled your brain when you refer to your own work and your own voice within the context of their walled garden. There is no such thing as “my Substack”, there is only your writing, and a forever fight against the world of pure enshittification.

Email is email. Writing is writing. Personally, I’ve worked hard to establish a POSSE approach to publishing my thoughts on the internet. The way it works is this: I publish everything on this website, where I own the domain and the content that lives here, and then I choose how and where that content gets delivered. You like email newsletters? Cool, that’s an option. Are you old school and want to subscribe via RSS? Yup. Do you spend your time on Mastodon or Bluesky? Posts hit those platforms as well. I even do this for shorter, in the moment posts that appear as if I’m posting from within the platform itself. This way of working is my attempt to shield myself from the eventual enshittification that is inevitable on any platform that needs to create a return for investors¹.

A lot of folks are really enjoying their time on Bluesky right now. They’re harkening back to their glory days of early Twitter when the firehose still existed, reverse chron was the only feed, influencers hadn’t been born yet, and the social web was like the Wild West. I’ll admit, I am caught up in the nostalgia a bit too.

Bluesky is is a corporation, however, and it’s raising a lot of money from private equity. Eventually the platform will need to generate revenue and there are really only a few ways to do that in the context of social media. All of those ways will typically make platforms worse for users.

Hopefully I’m wrong and Bluesky becomes a social platform that honors its users at scale. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts, but I’m not holding my breath. If and when enshittification does come to Bluesky, and there is a mass exodus to the next big social platform, at least the POSSE philosophy will have served me well.

I’ve spent the last week detached and disconnected from political discourse. This is different for me. I’m normally extremely pugged in and engaged but I just can’t follow this train wreck of a transition. I can’t watch the news. The podcasts in my queue remain unheard. My initially-deactivated accounts on corporate social media platforms are now officially nuked. I’ve muted certain words on Mastodon to keep the one remaining feed I actively monitor friendly and chill.

Several friends and family members have asked me in recent days what I think about the election results. The truth is that I am not yet ready or able to talk about it. I just can’t go there. I realize how privileged that is. I realize how others, who actively live the fight and endure assaults on their rights each day, don’t have this luxury.

Mentally, I think this is the only way I’m going to be able to handle what I fear is just going to get worse.

And while I hope I may find the strength to tap back in and rejoin the fight someday, I’ve taken comfort in this slower life – and this slower web – recently. Without the constant onslaught of negativity and endless doomscrolling, I’ve found time and space to write more. I’ve been able to connect with thoughts in more substantive and reflective ways than I typically do. Of course I’m getting out on the trails, but I’ve also started a strength training program. I finished a book. And started another. I’ve been binging The Diplomat, which while political, lands far enough outside of reality to feel like fiction.

I’m also rediscovering at a deeper level the personal independent web that exists below the corporate surface of the internet. This website is emblematic of it. Thousands of other homegrown websites exchange hyperlinks to form it. Some of my favorite discoveries lately are Erin Kissane’s new Wreckage/Salvage, Naz Hamid’s wonderful site, Ben Pobjoy’s newsletter chronicling his epic adventures on foot, The Shrediverse, Cory Dransfeldt’s wonderfully built and artisanal corner of the web, Craig Mod’s Roden and Ridgeline, Robin Sloan, and of course indieweb staples like The Marginalian and Kottke.

All of this is convincing me to build out a blogroll-type list here. Maybe I will. But for now I’ll continue to bask in and admire the slowness and thoughtfulness of the hand-crafted web. The slow web. If you have a site or newsletter or post somewhere free from surveillance capitalism, hit me up. I’d love to check out your stuff.

As we made the journey to our seats in peanut heaven at Acrisure Stadium the other night before the Monday Night Football game, I noticed something interesting out of the corner of my eye. Out beyond the open end of the stadium near the point of confluence, a swarm of drones lit up the night sky.

At first the drones appeared to be making elegant geometric designs. I thought it was cool and I couldn’t remember the Steelers ever making use of drones in their pre-game program. I paused to watch for a moment and then the designs began to morph into words. First Madame Vice President and then Madame President. Next the drones resolved into the Harris Walz logo.

I thought to myself, “What a subversive and smart advertising tactic!” with just enough time to grab my phone and snap a photo. When we got to the seats, there was still about 30 minutes before kickoff so I posted the photo here on my website with the caption: Harris Walz drone game is on point at tonight’s Steelers game! As with all posts on the site, the image and caption were syndicated to Mastodon, Bluesky and Threads. I then put my phone down and enjoyed watching my Pittsburgh Steelers beat those Giants in primetime.

Throughout the evening, I checked Mastodon a couple of times (per usual) to find a few friends had favorited the drone post. I don’t actively use Bluesky or Threads and I don’t have those applications installed on my phone, so the fact that the post went out to those platforms escaped me in the moment.

I usually try to check in on Bluesky and Threads replies once per day, so when I opened Threads on my laptop the next morning, I found the drone post had gone somewhat viral. At the time of this writing the post has 93K views, 12.4K likes, 246 replies and 292 reposts. Numbers of this scale are new to me. I’ve never had more than a dozen likes or replies to a post on any platform. Somehow the algorithm found this particular post, latched onto it and carried it across the Threads ecosystem.

A quick dive into the replies (I don’t recommend it) surfaces some of the worst of humanity. The comments trend toward distasteful, border on offensive and come from a wide-range of perspectives including crypto bots and MAGA trolls. There is even one commenter who claims it didn’t happen and asserts that I photoshopped the Harris Walz logo into the image.

While Meta and Threads talk about embracing the Fediverse and have taken some steps to walk the walk, their use of and reliance on algorithms alongside ActivityPub troubles me. What was it about this particular post that invited the algorithm to take hold? Was there something about the image itself? Or the caption? Or was it simply the network effect and extrapolation?

Whatever the cause, the experience raises some questions for me about my intention for cross-posting from this site. For now, I think I will disable Threads cross-posting because I’m not interested in going viral due to an algorithm boost. I write and publish as a method of capturing moments, and engaging in meaningful dialog with people about the topics that interest me. Threads does not seem like the place for that kind of interaction.

AI startup Anthropic yesterday announced an update to the Claude 3.5 Sonnet large language model that brings a new feature called ‘computer use’ to the forefront of the user experience. Available to developers via the API, users can now direct Claude to use computers like people – surveying open windows and performing operations like moving the mouse cursor, clicking links and buttons, and drafting text.

This is a huge development in the AI space, and one that Anthropic’s rivals in the space are pursuing with great priority. While the tech is nascent, slow and error-prone, the potential is immense. Casey Newton writing for Platformer:

But to use another phrase popular among the AI crowd, the agent that Anthropic released today is as bad as this kind of software will ever be. From this moment on, AI will no longer be limited to what can be typed inside a box. Which means it’s time for the rest of us to start thinking outside that box, too.

I’ve never been a huge proponent or advocate for AI¹ , but it’s impossible to deny the impact and influence on our daily lives in the wake of developments like this.

Several months ago, I began using both Claude and ChatGPT to understand how I might use LLMs to improve my professional workflows. Personally, I’ve found Claude to be a better fit for my use cases, which are specific to product management duties such as synthesizing user feedback, analyzing value and impact, and specifying acceptance criteria in technical terms.

With advancements like Anthropic’s ‘computer use’ happening so rapidly in the AI space, it’s daunting to think about what might be coming at us next. One might say the future is already here. I might say we’re perpetually living in it.

Ryan Broderick writing in yesterday’s Garbage Day about the state of the social web as it relates to text-first platforms like Bluesky, Xitter and Threads:

Unless something truly miraculous happens, it is reasonable to assume that every day there will be fewer people reading words on the internet than there were the day before.

I hope this won’t be the case and will do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t. The fundamental building blocks of the web are words and hyperlinks. Both must have a place in perpetuity if the web is to function as it was intended, as we want and need it to.

The web needs words.

Beck Tench is a designer and researcher who studies the way technology impacts our lives at Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving. Her mission is simple: begin to understand what it means for young people to thrive in this increasingly digital and connected world.

I’ve been a fan of Beck’s work since we initially crossed paths more than a decade ago, when we both focused on building compelling digital experiences for museums. I worked primarily with art museums and she worked primarily with science museums. We both brought a healthy sense of skepticism to the task of infusing cultural experiences with technology, and held a high regard of professional respect for each other’s approach to digital mindfulness. In fact, we collaborated twice (1, 2) and each conversation ranks as a personal highlight during my time in the museum sector.

While we haven’t kept in touch, I’ve been following Beck’s professional journey through her newsletter, Making Thriving Visible. And while everything she writes is interesting to me, I found her most recent update to be extremely profound. In it, Beck uses the analogy of a tiger named Mohini – who was conditioned by zookeepers to exist within an uncaged 12’ x 12’ space – to explain the way digitally-enabled grind culture was negatively impacting her mindset and happiness.

Through likening her situation to Mohini’s experience, Beck came to the realization that she was not thriving. She made some impactful changes and now considers the definition of thriving in a whole new light:

I am beginning to see thriving, digitally or otherwise, as a practice. It’s not a destination. It isn’t static. We can be thriving and things can change. We can change. If Mohini had ventured out of her 12x12 self-imposed cage… if she had explored the trees and hills and plants and pond, would she have started to notice the exhibit fence? Would she have wondered what was on the other side?

Thriving as a practice. I can get behind that, and I think to some extent I’m subconsciously working on it. The mindful changes I’ve made in my digital and professional footprint are evidence, but after reading Beck’s piece I am going formalize my thriving practice by creating a reflection and future visioning routine.

If you’re interested in digital mindfulness, I highly recommend Beck’s newsletter. You can subscribe via Substack, or via RSS (like I do) to avoid any surveillance capitalism that may be associated with the delivery platform.

Ryan Broderick has some theories in today’s Garbage Day newsletter about why Republican disinformation isn’t completely gumming up the works this time around:

Is it because the media has gotten institutionally smarter about giving these stories oxygen? Is it because industry-wide layoffs have gutted newsrooms across the country and now there’s just fewer reporters to throw at stupid shit editors saw on Twitter/X? Is it because cable news audiences are literally dying off? Is it because Facebook has gotten rid of news content? Who knows, but things have changed in that regard.

It’s a little bit of all of this, I think. The media has gotten smarter about fanning the flames, but I hope we have too. If we haven’t gotten smarter, than maybe we’ve gotten tired of hearing about these disinformation narratives at every online turn. I mean, that’s a primary reason for my not using social media these days. Broderick continues:

The online pathways that the right wing have relied on since 2015 to, not just win elections, but shape America’s national discourse are gone. And it’s almost entirely because pathologically annoying conservatives pushed everyone else out. All of the viral energy around Walz might turn into something that America’s various horrible uncles might ramble about incoherently at the Thanksgiving table in a few weeks — if Harris wins, I guess — but unless a Republican operative Mr. Magoo’s themselves into a real scoop about Walz’s past, none of this is really going to move the needle.

This is right. We are now able to see our collective crazytown uncles and their wild theories as simply weird. And because the theories are not sucking the life out of our social fabric, we have the choice to participate with it. Or not. I choose the latter.

As an aside, Garbage Day is consistently one of the few email newsletters I read from top to bottom. The way Broderick weaves thoughtful and astute sociological observations against a backdrop of social media dumpster fires and the political hellscape we find ourselves in on the reg is a thing of beauty. Highly recommended.

A few articles about the shopping habits of Gen Z have caught my attention over the past few days. As someone who works in retail technology – leading a team that focuses on sales floor operations – I keep a close eye on consumer trends. These two pieces, published within days of each other in separate outlets, are interesting to me because they reinforce a singular thesis: digital natives enjoy shopping in physical stores.

Modern Retail sets the stage with reference to an ICSC study that highlights the social nature of shopping for young people:

Sixty percent of the ICSC survey’s Gen Z respondents said they visit malls to socialize or meet friends even if they don’t need something specific, 60% also said they would rather spend money on experiences than material items, and 70% said retail centers and stores have done a good job designing things for Gen Z members to enjoy together.

This is interesting. I think the social experience created inside a store flys under the radar of most retailers. This is natural because we’re primarily business-minded and transactional in nature. Creating an environment for social connection on our sales floors not only meets this need for young customers, but it creates opportunity for connection points among all in-store customers. If you can do that well, it’s a big step toward creating community.

To my surprise, a few days after reading the Modern Retail article I stumbled upon a similar piece in The Guardian about how bookshops are suddenly cool¹ with Gen Z and Millennials. Some of the same themes are reinforced here, notably how physical space can foster community and a growing aversion to algorithmic recommendations:

“I think it’s kind of a misconception that younger people want to do everything online or only care about how things look on social media,” Grace Gooda, the manager at Morocco Bound in Bermondsey tells me. “In our experience … it creates a relationship where they trust our recommendations and might take home something they wouldn’t have seen advertised elsewhere.”

This deeper connection is what really makes physical bookshops appeal to many younger readers. “Bookshops aren’t just places to buy books, they’re places of community, of gathering and this is something that’s actively fostered by so many bookshops,” Ash, 29, from Yorkshire, says. “Speaking to staff to get book recommendations is often a path into hearing more about the community aspects of bookshops, too – it’s often more than just a book recommendation.”

When I think about how these threads apply to my daily work at REI, I think there is relevance here. We already do a great job of showcasing the knowledge & expertise of our store employees, but we can definitely do more to foster human connection in our stores – inclusive of employee-to-customer and customer-to-customer experiences. My world (store technology) can play an important role in this effort, but it will take a truly collaborative effort across all store teams to create compelling experiences for the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts.

A couple months ago, my GPS watch stopped syncing with Strava. For whatever reason at the time, I was unable to restore the connection. I was also not in a position to spend $$$ on a new GPS watch, so since this disconnect was introduced my activities have no longer been pushing out to the popular social network for endurance athletes. As an active daily user who dished out boku kudos, I was initially quite bummed. And because I wasn’t posting to Strava, I stopped opening the app and reviewing what my friends were doing.

In the days since, I’ve noticed my mindset has been much healthier with respect to my exercise activities. So much of my time spent in Strava was me comparing my stats, paces and distances to others’. This resulted (subconsciously) in feeling pressure to always push harder, faster and further. I was losing the joy associated with getting outside and moving my body through the natural world.

In recent weeks, it’s been refreshing to get out for runs, rides and climbs simply for my own personal enjoyment, rather than feeding the ego associated with throwing down something epic for the kudos. It’s funny how this small technical hiccup has allowed me to recenter on my love for movement outside instead of the dopamine that came from the likes after the fact.

As someone who was born on the blurry border between Generation X and the Millennial generation, I remember a time before the internet and I fondly recollect my curiosity surrounding the emerging internet in the late-90s. The infant internet was an extremely strange place. There were very few rules, even fewer boundaries and – as far as I could gather – no limits to the interconnected potential of this new universe.

I wanted to know how it worked, so I too could have a hand in creating the magic of the World Wide Web. I viewed page sources and inspected elements to learn how HTML and CSS fused together to make websites. I started making my own sites and added them to webrings. Remember those?

AOL gave way to Geocities gave way to Blogger gave way to Wordpress, which led to MySpace which led to Twitter. At the dawn of early social media, I felt just as excited about using the web to connect and share with likeminded people who were equally excited about the promise of digital culture. The early days of Twitter felt like the Wild West. Everyone was exploiting the tech for their own needs via open APIs and user-generated features like the hashtag.

The progress in this space in the early- to mid-2000s was a thing of wonder. We started to see its impact on communities, politics, art + culture, and social justice. Social media had become the great democratizer.

And then somewhere along the line money, user data, and algorithms took over.

Reverse chronological timelines morphed into algorithmic feeds labeled ‘For You,’ but the feeds don’t actually show posts from the people you follow. This helped create the attention economy and influencers were born. Shortly after, the 2016 & 2020 elections helped create a toxic level of political polarization, online echo chambers fortified the barriers between those polarized, and misinformation campaigns continue to feed the flames of the burning social stack.

I’m done with all that. Over time I’ve learned that participating in the attention economy negatively impacts my mental and emotional well being and I am making a conscious choice to walk away from it. In support of this decision, I am rethinking how I spend my time online. Connecting and sharing with people is still important to me, but I want to do it in a mindful and responsible way. Here’s how I plan to do this:

• Reinvest in publishing on a personal domain. I’ve written on the web since I was a kid and I really enjoy the act of working through thoughts and then putting those thoughts out into the world to see what comes back. A personal site allows for writing at a deeper level than social media will allow and I maintain control over the final product. This website – built on the Micro.Blog platform and underlying Hugo CMS – will be my home for that moving forward.
• Integrate with the social web. I’ve consolidated my social media use to Mountains.Social, a decentralized instance of Mastodon that caters to outdoors enthusiasts. The people are friendly, the community is vibrant, the culture is healthy and there are no algorithms. I’m enjoying my time there. Check it out if you’re interested, or not. No pressure. All posts here will automatically cross-post there, as well as Bluesky (although I am not really hanging out there very much).

So here’s to hoping I can enjoy a healthy relationship with the internet again. The spirit of the open web was a philosophical pillar for me at one point in my life, and I’m hoping that it will be again. Hello, old friend.

Innovation starts on the fringes. It germinates on the edges and festers in the shadows. It begins below the surface where the dissidents and dissatisfied reside, and it is from these depths that seismic shifts occur.

These shifts rarely happen slowly and incrementally. We may think of them as glacial, but the historical evidence suggests that change of this scale is rapid and transformational. Subterranean ideas take shape and take hold quickly inside the earth’s core, and they begin their rise to the surface through fault lines and volcanos. And then, when enough pressure and momentum has built, the earth gives way to new land formations upon which these new ideas can stand tall.

A question I regularly ask myself and now pose to you: Who’s your core and what’s your fault line?

Let’s shake the world.

In an op-ed piece in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review published last week, cartoonist, pundit and former director of the Toonseum Joe Wos attempts to tackle the topic of technology’s impact on the museum experience. In Death of the Art Museum?, a markedly uninformed Wos asserts:

Art is an important part of society. But museums to house it might no longer be needed. Art museums are a holdover from an elitist, patriarchal society that force-fed us hand-picked culture. They are becoming discarded relics of the past, much like encyclopedias, phone books and Bill Cosby’s career.

He continues:

Only a handful of high-profile art museums — such as the Met, Smithsonian and Louvre — are thriving. That’s because they package themselves as “must-see” attractions, serving tourists as backdrops for cultural selfies.

To those of us who work in the #musetech field, the article regurgitates many of the antiquated arguments we’re used to confronting, however this piece lacks even the slightest trace of research or factual support. I suggest you take a few minutes to read the whole thing.

Outside of the author’s baseless assertions and lack of evidence to support the claims thrown around within the piece, there has been some constructive dialogue emerging from the article:

• Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh President Jo Ellen Parker responds to Joe Wos
• WESA-FM airs an hour-long discussion on the topic of museums + technology
• Judy O’Toole and Charlie Humphrey respond to Joe Wos
• Koven Smith gets in on the action

Wow. Pittsburgh is talking openly about museums and technology! Even though his article is completely off-base, I’d personally like to thank Mr. Wos for starting this discussion. Anytime the topic of #musetech transcends specialty blogs like this one and makes a splash within mainstream conventional media, especially here in Pittsburgh, it’s a good thing. I hope the conversation continues.

I’ve been writing and developing Static Made three years this month. Before that, I was publishing a less-focused personal blog. And before that, I had a fairly-well-read lefty political site. If we go all the way back, a Geocities page for emo show reviews got the whole thing rolling for me.

When I stop and really think about it, I’ve been making stuff for the internet my entire adult life. Lately it’s art + tech projects or blog posts, but at times it’s been music, video or political opinion. I guess this is natural for creators — evolving, shifting, moving forward.

People always ask me, when such great off-the-shelf tools exist for internet creators, why I continue to put so much time and attention into a freestanding personal website. I then typically launch into a diatribe about how it’s important that we participate in the open web and publish content that’s independent of platform-specific silos. And while that’s part of the reason, it’s not completely true.

The real reason I do this is because no one else will. This site is an extension of me. If I want the logo shifted over 5 pixels, I’ll do it. If I grow tired of the color pallette, I’ll change it. If I want to blow the whole thing up and start over, I can and I have. If I want to publish a piece no one will read about my motives behind making this site, there’s no one stopping me.

Dave Winer believes a good blog exists independently of people reading it. I agree. Readers are important, and I certainly appreciate each and every one of you who reads this site, but I’d continue to write if the Static Made readership vanished overnight.

My objective here has nothing to do with what happens after I’ve published. It’s about the creative process. My mission with this website is to create a place where I can grow artistically and professionally; workshop some crazy thoughts in varying states of undress, and leave a semi-permanent marker of those ideas that can live on indefinitely when I’m gone. Hopefully that’s not any time soon.

The following is a talk I gave at the American Alliance of Museums conference in Seattle on May 20, 2014. It was part of a panel called Crowd Sourcing to Community Sourcing: Engaging Visitor Input.

Hi. My name is Jeffrey Inscho and I lead digital and emerging media efforts at Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. For the past two years, my museum has been experimenting with new approaches to programming designed to harness community input, elevate visitors from passive viewers to active participants, and inform/disrupt our institutional concept of what gallery experiences can and should be.

My goal is to highlight two specific projects — one complete and formative, the other in-progress — that exemplify just how transformative this type of approach can be for an institution.

Before we get into the details of these particular projects, I think it’s important to begin with a bit of institutional context. The image you’re looking at now is from 1896. In it you can see artworks being delivered to the museum via horse-drawn wagons. I think this image says a lot about our institution. On one hand, it’s just that: an institution. And not only that, it’s one with more than a century of institutional tradition — processes, workflows and operations that have been ingrained into the fabric of the place. CMOA certainly isn’t alone in this respect, and I’m not speculating on whether this is good or bad. It’s just a fact and I’m just annotating it as an accepted truth.

On the other hand, my museum also has aspirations of achieving relevance in the lives of non-traditional museum-goers and diverse audiences. This increasingly means CMOA must operate in sync with — not in competition against — the fast-moving world around us.

Exhibitions not excluded.Reimagining our programming so it resonates with people on their terms and on their turf — that’s where these concepts of community sourcing and open authority come in for us.

This story begins in the fall of 2012, when we were presented with an interesting challenge by Lynn Zelevansky, our director. A slot was made available in our Forum Gallery for an open-ended experiment. The goals and specifications set forth for us were this:

1. Create an experience where visitors would engage with real artworks in a personally meaningful way. We had to use collection objects; This was an insistence of our director.
2. Make new connections and forge meaningful relationships with a target demographic (in this instance 20- to 40-year-olds), particularly by connecting real-word & online experiences.
3. Open up the museum to true dialog with the public and have that public actively impact content/display in the gallery.
4. Be clear that this was not an exhibition in the traditional sense, but that it was an experimental project.

And with those four directives in hand, a cross-departmental, cross-hierarchical group of colleagues were off to the races.

The working group tasked with making this project happen was diverse and broad. It included not only technologists like myself, but also museum educators, editors, art handlers, curatorial assistants and representatives from our registrar’s office. We met regularly over the course of approximately six months to wrestle around with our ideas, explore the adjacent possibilities, pursue what we thought were invigorating concepts and ultimately refine those concepts into a cohesive and full-featured project.

On the other side of all this ideation, we emerged with a concept we were all very excited about. The premise for our proposal was this:

• We would utilize 13 recent acquisitions from our photography department as the launchpad for the project. Decisions about which works would be made democratically by the working group and we would display these objects in the gallery.
• We would invite visitors to respond to these artworks in a visual or photographic capacity — via their smartphones or computers. - - We would use these responses and feedback to inform the presentation in the gallery during the run. While photos would be submitted and accepted digitally via the web, they would be physically represented in the gallery by their tangible, real-world manifestations.
• We would make every attempt to bridge the digital and physical components of the project, from event programming to the submission experience. It was important to us that this project have real-world impact.
• And finally, we would be institutionally okay if this project flopped. We were aware it was a substantial risk and we were (somewhat) cool with that.

All of this sounds super lofty and conceptual and full of museum-speak. We realized that for this project to succeed, we needed to accurately and effectively communicate the concept to our audience. Strike that, our co-creators. Our partners.

We settled on a short and memorable name: Oh Snap! We employed bold colors and fonts in the graphic design, and we made it as easy as possible for people to participate. Acknowledging the Oh Snap! concept was somewhat non-traditional and a bit abstract, we borrowed a page from the playbook of tech startups, and we produced a brief trailer to effectively convey the project’s personality and process. It’s about two minutes long and quite humorous, so I’ll play it now.

We built a responsive website that served as both the project archive, and also as the photographic submission vehicle. This was mainly an accessibility decision, but it also had budget implications because CMOA had the skill set to develop internally. Once we realized that the major mobile operating systems were loosening up to allow mobile browsers to access camera rolls, it was a no brainer. No app needed.

The rest was akin to a digital Rube Goldberg experiment. We daisy-chained several 3rd party services to facilitate the submission queue, approval process, website upload and participant notifications. Wufoo fed into Dropbox fed into IFTTT fed into WordPress fed into Mailchimp. Super hacky. A lot of variables were at play and I’m frankly surprised it worked.

But it did and the result was a participatory, community-sourced, open authority-infused project that blurred the digital and the physical.

I guess you’re probably interested in the results and how we determined whether or not the Oh Snap! project was a success.

During the 2 ½ months of the project, we received a total of 1,264 submissions. All of them, except for one, made it onto the walls of the gallery and the website. Some of them are really great. You should definitely have a look for yourself. They’re all archived on the project website: ohsnap.cmoa.org.

41% of all participants fell into our target age demographic of between 20–40 years old. That was by far the largest demo group, so I think we were successful in reaching the intended audience. The lion’s share of submissions came from the western Pennsylvania and tri-state area, but we did receive a good number of submissions from locations around the world such as Europe, South America and Asia.

We gave all participants (via email) a free pass to the museum to come see their work in our galleries. Approximately ten percent of those passes came back to us. That may seem low, but when compared to our average return rate of 3%, we were very happy with that percentage.

Fast forward one year. Oh Snap! was so transformative for us as a proof-of-concept and an institutional precedent, that we were able to leverage some of the velocity we created with it into an extremely large-scale project called the Hillman Photography Initiative. An incubator for innovative thinking about the photographic image, the Initiative aims to present a new programming model for the museum and revolutionize the notion of what a museum can be and do in the digital age.

Just to be clear, research and planning for the Initiative had been occurring for some time, but the notion of community sourcing became a valid option for us rather recently, only after the first cycle of projects had been solidified and the successes of Oh Snap! had been realized. You can learn more about all the projects that make up the Hillman Photography Initiative at nowseethis.org. For now, though, I’ll focus on a specific project that embraces this philosophy of community sourcing.

One of the projects in the initial cycle of the Hillman Photography Initiative is A People’s History of Pittsburgh. This is a very compelling project that parlays many of the things we learned with Oh Snap! into a cohesive experience that blurs the physical and the digital, and has its thesis rooted in community.

Through A People’s History of Pittsburgh, the museum is asking people to send in their Pittsburgh memories and become a part of a collective photo album for the people of Pittsburgh. Fueled by those who still live in the city, or those in the “Pittsburgh Nation,” this project invites people to contribute family-owned, found, or anonymous photographs. We’re also asking participants to share their unique stories about life experiences from the Pittsburgh region. A People’s History of Pittsburgh exists as an ever-growing online archive — filterable by date, geo tag, and theme — as well as an eventual print publication.

A People’s History of Pittsburgh has only been live for a few weeks, however we’re already starting to see some great participation.

Like this image, submitted by Matthew Newton, which depicts his grandfather manning his desk (broken arm and all) at the Mesta Machine Company, in Homestead, an industrial suburb just outside the city, in 1972. Matthew notes in his story about this photo that the back is inscribed with the affectionate description, “Sad Ass Hank.”

Or this photo from Kurt Tint depicting the Carnegie Danceland in the 1950s. His dad was the original proprietor.

Or even this recent image, circa 2011, from an anonymous user who captured a popular street musician known for performing in the Strip District.

A People’s History of Pittsburgh also manifests itself on-site at the museum. Because that’s the point of all this right? To impact the experience when someone is here with us? Throughout the run of the project, the museum will be displaying the images on-site, as well as hosting a series of “scanning days,” designed to help community members with little or no internet access be a part of the project.

I’ll leave you with this image. It’s one of many hand-written notes from visitors we received during the Oh Snap! project. Validation like this was important to both the working group as well as the museum, and it went a long way in affirming to us that we made something that meant something — not only to us, but to a community of participants who actively partnered with us to make the thing happen. Community sourcing projects are impossible without an engaged and invested community.

Thanks for listening. Everything I showed and said today can be found on my site at this link, and if you have questions please do holler on Twitter or email. Thanks!

For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve been enamored with artists who operate with authenticity and create work that I consider to be remarkable. It started early on for me with the likes of Fugazi, the beat poets and Jean-Michel Basquiat. During the pre- and early-Internet days it seemed like there was no shortage of musicians, writers and visual artists who were creating work of staggering genius. It took a great deal of effort on my part to discover, but that effort was worth it to me because the work was remarkable.

Since then, the Internet has taken hold. And due to the creative paradigm shift spurred by the web, I’ve found it difficult to discover post-Internet artists of the same authentic and remarkable caliber. While the benefits of the connected world (democratization of media, the enabling of real-time publishing, etc.) are regularly touted, I feel these same benefits are also the fundamental detriment of the world wide web.

The signal-to-noise ratio is completely inverted. There is too much collective and regressive output. Everything is instant and temporary. Meme culture and SEO and pay-per-click and the incessant self-promotion that comes along with the premise of social media is drowning out the amazing art I’m sure is out there. Somewhere. Beneath the din.

I am not alone in this view. Writer JD Bentley feels the same and is taking action. He writes in his fantastic essay, Our Secret Handshake is Not an Algorithm:

Medi­oc­rity reigns supreme, the noise exceeds the sig­nal, the best are drown out by the loud­est because being loud is much eas­ier than being remark­able. While sites of the past felt like secret clubs which demanded a secret hand­shake (that human con­nec­tion), today’s sites are often mass-produced mar­ket­ing non­sense, their secret hand­shakes being noth­ing more than an effort­less algo­rith­mic assump­tion on Google’s servers. It is this with which I’m fed up.

Quite a statement. And Bentley is walking the walk. He’s pulled his site from search engines, removed all social sharing features and is relying solely on reader referrals to grow his audience base. This emphasis on quality vs. quantity allows him to completely focus on his mission: Making remarkable art.

As someone who’s intimately involved at the intersection of mission-based messaging and new media, this approach is so refreshing. I’ve written about digital authenticity in the past. It’s something I’m borderline-obsessed with. I’m constantly thinking about ways to honestly, innovatively and authentically connect with audiences. It always boils down to the mission. Everything is driven by the mission. Aspire to be true with your message, not loud.

I’m excited to see a writer like JD Bentley take this step and I hope more artists and mission-driven organizations follow suit.