I am going to be away from computers for a few days as we go off on a short getaway. Even bloggers have to stop and smell the flowers.
Special thanks to Alphaprof Dennis Dunleay who, after seing the photos I have been posting, said, "you can still shoot!" That really meant a lot to me.
Richard Craig, another Journalism Prof doing great stuff!
Keep an eye on what professor Craig is doing. Professor Craig just returned from the Poynter Institute's "Convergence for College Educators." Next week he is putting on a presentation to Journalism Department faculty on the trip and will be speaking about tablet computing.
Professor Craig is the advisor to the university newspaper The Spartan Daily. Craig is working with MIS Professor Malu Roldan, they will be equipping two Spartan Daily reporters with tablet computers. Tablet computers are increasingly being seen as a killer platform for the education market.
What does Apple, the company that considers education its home turf, think of all this? According to an un-named friend who works at Apple, the company has looked at tablet computers and decided there is no market for them. I told him, in my opinion they are leaving money on the table and if Microsoft gets smart they can eat Apple's lunch. As for me, I am a reverse switcher. I am now using a tablet running XP Tablet Edition. It rocks.
Great folks to work with
Here is one of my colleagues. Jason Ferguson is a very hard working guy and he is here long into the night. I really enjoy working with Jason and the other fine folks in my department.
Break Dancer at SJSU
Henri Cartier-Bresson called it "the decisive moment." It is that moment when time, motion and objects come together. It is that moment, and only that moment, when the picture happens and the shutter has to click. The thing I hated most about my old, cheap digital camera is it had shutter lag. It was almost impossible for me to get "the picture." I was almost always missing the decisive moment. My film cameras are responsive, my old digital camera was not. This new Nikon is incredible. It has a shutter lag of 36 milliseconds. It is, for all intents, instantaneous. It is magic.
During my breaks today I have been taking pictures. The university is such a great place to wander with a camera. The new Nikon is great, I love using it. Working with RAW files [ What is "Camera Raw"? ] is really amazing. I really appreciate the input from Bob Bain and Dennis Dunleavy in selecting this camera. Today I made this photo of an approaching storm.
After promising to sell a body part to pay for it I have made the leap into serious digital photography by buying a Nikon D2H. This is one gorgeous camera! It came with tons of documentation and software, most of which I would have gladly let them keep for a lower price tag. I can hardly wait to start shooting with it.
Renee Blodgett gets it! She is a great communicator and an uber marketer, she is a real nice person and is the person I would want to represent me if I was introducing a new product or service. You want to see some new great technology that may be impacting our future? Then read this write-up of hers reflecting on last week's Demo event.
Making the leap, this is big (for me)
When I go to the Geek Dinners I get laughs when I shoot with my film cameras. Those days may be over. I am on the edge of doing something truly life changing. I am on the edge of getting a real serious digital camera. I am on the edge of getting a Nikon D2H. I went and looked at one yesterday at Keeble and Shuccat photography yesterday and fell in instant love, also their price matched NY price. This is an amazing piece of equipment and it works with all my lenses! The "old D2H" is being cleared out for about $2,000. This is a serious camera, rugged and a fine picture taker! The next amazing thing is how little I can get for my film cameras. Good used Hasselblads are way less than a grand and I saw a fully configured used F4 with motor for $500. This is amazing, people are abandoning film in droves. As the market for film shrinks the prices for film will shrink, then explode as usable inventory disappears and it becomes a boutique item. At least, that is what happened with movie film after video took over. I can't help but feel sad when I think of all the happy memories and wonderful pictures I have taken with my film cameras, but I want this camera, I will miss going into the darkroom. Maybe I can get a digital back for my Hassie, someday.
Alphaprof Dennis Dunleavy has moved his blog!
He is now on Typepad [ about Typepad ] and it is a really cool blog! You gotta check it out, you just gotta!
~Steve
I guess I have started a grassroots journalism project. Years ago I served several terms as union president in the staff employees union at San Jose State. Lately I have seen some developments in the union I am very disturbed about. So, I have started this blog to voice those concerns, and to start a conversation on the subject.
Please check out this post by Nick Bradbury. It is about the most recent release of FeedDemon, and it looks like a great tool for folks using PC's to deal with a lot of RSS content. For Mac users the new version of NetNewsWire looks fantastic.
On a different subject, you just gotta check out what is happening at Demo! Man, am I jealous! Renee Blodgett is blogging live and lively from down there and I am sitting here in the rain watching her have all the fun.
As my mother-in-law would say, Fooey!
Elisa Camahort was at the Scoble dinner and the party after. In this blog, called the worker bees blog, and her personal blog, she reported on and made some interesting observations on the SJSU Robert Scoble event and the Geek dinner after. I was too busy to take such good notes, so I really appreciate hers, and her comments! She even took this photo that had me in it. I'm the dufus with the tie!
Meanwhile, Alpha-Prof Dennis Dunleavy has been doing some great stuff developing the conversation on his journalism specific blog. Last, if you are interested in some personal memories related to my friendship with Robert and his early days at SJSU as a Pup-Geek, those are here.
The SJSU visit was like tweeking a tuning fork, you can still feel the vibes long after.
[ Robert at SJSU! more pictures here! ]
When Robert Scoble comes to visit, go! If you are busy, change your plans so you are not busy (if you can.) Go not just to see Robert. Go to see the people who go to see Robert! I met Buzz and Renee thanks to Robert. Dori I met at OSXCON, then she showed up at a Scoble Geek Dinner. Dori and I connected at OSXCON on cats, (we both have cats named Pixel: [ Hers ] [ Mine ].)
I have met other great people too. Tantek, Mike, Tom, Steve Gillmor and many more. Scoble visits are a great place to meet folks, network, get new ideas and learn new things.
Each time I go to a Geek Dinner it results in a leap for me of knowledge, thought and ideas.
I think one of the neatest things about this medium, (and events and the folks who do this) is not only can you have a conversation when you all blog but conversations trigger other conversations that lead to new ideas and new connections and it all happens and gets recorded and is serarchable and creates data to be manipulated, stored, rearranged and explored in ways not imagined as the information is being created. I love it.
Also, I have thought a lot about Robert's post about my post and, yes Bob is right. You have to consider there are always limits and we all have to decide what those limits are and pay the consequences if we are wrong. Yes, you have to blog smart! If I write a story revealing personal information about my own life that may be legally and ethically okay, but if I write about a person who is not a public figure and violate their privacy, it is not legally and ethically okay. Law and ethics always limit what I say. If I were to say something bad about my boss, I had better be prepared for consequences. Consequences like retribution happens! I admire those who are courageous enough to let their emotions show and be so human in an Internet that caches your content. Worse things can happen than getting fired, too. If I were a member of a corrupt union, and blogged about it, there could be even more dire consequences than blogging about my boss.
Any time you engage in a conversation with one or more person, even if you just use good old fashioned speech, you have to be smart. It is like the classic "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater," you have responsibility for what you say. If Mark Jen had said what he said to bunch of people in a bar after a bunch of beers, and one of the folks there had known his boss, the outcome may have been the same.
Never say never, but I obviously am not a corporate blogger. I work for the state at a university that I love, but if I just wanted to do an 8-hour day and collect my pay, I could. But, that just sounds so boring and I am having fun. But no, I do not have as much at stake as Robert or Mark. But then, neither will I ever have my own fan club! That's okay, perhaps my tombstone will someday say, here lay Steve Sloan, Scoble's former boss.
What a hoot!
This post of Bob's surprised me. As anybody who has read my blog knows I have nothing but admiration for Robert Scoble. I would link to Scoble if he worked in a gas station, because he is a long time friend and he has great things to say! Last night we saw the "famous" Mark Jen, the guy who got fired from Google for what he blogged. Robert said:
In my opinion blogging (including videoblogging and podcasting) is this, it is all Robert talked about at SJSU and it is more. To me blogging is a giant collaborative cultural auto-biography written in real time by the subjects of the story. We all get to write and link our life stories. This is something truly and absolutely new to the human experience.
On my own time, off the state's dime, I want to do a blogger's user group here at SJSU. I would like us to get together, provide mutual support for and invite folks to speak to the people who are members of the SJSU community who are interested in webblogging.
So, let's do a blug! We could be blug bloggers.
Please comment here, or email me at s_sloan@mac.com if you are interested.
Dear Blogosphere:
One of the topics of conversation that came up in last night's great Geek Dinner with Robert Scoble is how a person presents his or herself and establishes a virtual identity with blogs. Should a person have one weblog where all thoughts, opinions, passions and ideas are presented? Or, should a person divide their blogs into categorys that can be viewed as a whole or by category? Or, should they have separate blogs for different parts of their lives?
I went the different blog route. I do not want folks to have to sift through what to them may seem like noise to get to the content (the signal) that they want. Also, I do not want folks to be turned off on what I present on one topic because they disagree with an unrelated opinion.
The down side is I may not be presenting an honest digital identity of who I am. So, for the sake of honesty and full disclosure, here it all is:
So, there it is Blogosphere, that is who I am. For the sake of full disclosure, I am posting this to all my blogs!
~Steve
Thursday's at SJSU is an exciting weblogging session facilitated by Robert Scoble.
Scoble is the Microsoft, Technical Evangelist for the US .NET Platform Strategy. He is a very much in demand speaker. His coming to our campus is very special. The session is free and being offered this Thursday from 2:30 to 4:00 in Room 225/227 of the Martin Luther King Library at San Jose State University in San Jose.
Robert Scoble graduated from SJSU 14 years ago with a Journalism degree and he has gone on to great things. He is on the leading edge of what Dan Gillmor, in his book "We the media," calls new media. In his book, Gillmor speaks highly of Scoble.
Scoble is a prolific and popular weblogger and is widely credited for putting a human face on Microsoft.
He will be speaking on the same subject he discussed at the recent Blogger Business Summit
Into the blogosphere: Why blogging changes the way people communicate is the title of his presentation. Simply put, Blogs are eating the lunch of many traditionally architected Web sites. In terms of reach, influence, cost and convenience, the advantages are indisputable and significant. For those still building sites the 'old' way, this hour will reveal why the future belongs to Bloggers. Robert Scoble, who FastCompany Magazine claims "may well be one of the most powerful people in Redmond" has helped shape Microsoft's blogging strategy, and has advised Bill Gates on the market opportunities. Robert will reveal why this new architecture rules and how to take full advantage of it.
This session is co-sponsored by the SJSU Center for Faculty Development and Support and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Please RSVP to Dennis Dunleavy, Assistant Professor, Journalism and Mass Communications, (408) 924-3245 or Steve Sloan, IT Consultant, Academic Technology (408) 924-2374. Dunleavy and Sloan are the contacts for this event.
Scoble's weblog is here: http://scoble.weblogs.com
This cute little film is a great intro to using podcasting. It is in Real format and you can download the player here. The film is done by Lisa Williams and it is very well done.
Robert Scoble wrote some great words about SJSU professor Steve Greene and included a link to a Greene site.
We, at SJSU, are really looking forward to Scoble's visit! Without minimizing the terrific efforts of professor Greene I would also strongly recommend looking at the work of SJSU Journalism professor Dennis Dunleavy. Professor Dunleavy is enthusiastic about emerging technology. He not only talks the talk, he walks the walk. He has been teaching using this blog for quite some time! He has built a global conversation of students, academics and professionals that is very exciting! Also, he has worked hard at SJSU making arrangements for facilities and doing publicity and evangelizing to make the Scoble event happen.
There is a cadre of folks working to bring new media technology to our great campus. This is one recent accomplishment:
SJSU RSS Feeds
We are very lucky at SJSU to have great faculty members like Dunleavy and Greene.
Into the Blogosphere, Facilitated by Robert Scoble, Microsoft Technical Evangelist for the next generation of Windows Longhorn and the US .NET Platform Strategy
This is a very special event!
Simply put, Blogs are eating the lunch of many traditionally architected Web sites. In terms of reach, influence, cost and convenience, the advantages are indisputable and significant. For those still building sites the "old" way, this hour will reveal why the future belongs to Bloggers. Robert Scoble, who FastCompany Magazine claims "may well be one of the most powerful people in Redmond" has helped shape Microsoft's blogging strategy, and has advised Bill Gates on the market opportunities. Robert will reveal why this new architecture rules and how to take full advantage of it.
This event will be Thursday, February 10 from, 2:30p to 4:00 in Room 225/227 Martin Luther King Library. Please RSVP to either Photojournalism professor Dennis Dunleavy, CFDS Staff at 924-2303 or cfd@sjsu.edu or Steve.Sloan@sjsu.edu that you are coming. Robert Scoble is a dynamic and highly sought after speaker and this may never happen again!
