Blog Entries
Blog entries, here and from elsewhere.
Blogging without Makeup
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 07/07/2009 - 05:38They say that to be a great writer, you need to be a voracious reader, which may explain why my online nonfiction seems to be better than my efforts at novels, short stories or poetry. I spend a lot of time reading blogs, emails, tweets, op-eds and so on. What I like best is raw authenticity, and not the carefully packaged media we too often find.
This was brought to mind by an email I recently received on a mailing list of Group Psychotherapists. There had been a discussion of some group and a dear friend suggested it would be interesting for members of the group to remove their makeup during the session and talk about the feelings that emerged and how it affected their opinions of one another.
This prompted a fascinating reply by Marvin N. Kaphan, LCSW, CGP, Past President of the Group Psychotherapy Association of Southern California.
In his keynote address to their 53rd annual conference, he spoke about The Changing Face of Group Psychotherapy: Adventures in Fifty Years of Practice
He mentioned how many years ago some groups included nudity. Psychotherapist Paul Bindrim’s used this to explore the possibility that “a man's ‘tower of clothes’ is not only a safeguard for his privacy, but also a self-imposed constraint to keep out people he fears”.
On the mailing list, Marv related this story of one group
Many, many years ago when we experimented with nude groups, one woman in one of my groups said: I will take my clothes off, but you will never see me without my makeup. After weeks of the group enquiring about what her fear was, she grudgingly agreed to take her make up off. She went to the bath room and was gone for over a half hour. Finally, the group became concerned and someone went after her. They found her struggling with her fear of facing the group. When she finally appeared without her makeup, no one could detect a difference.
It seems like this applies well to all aspects of life, including blogging. How many of us are afraid that we just aren’t good enough and have to hide behind some sort of makeup designed to make us look a little better? As bloggers, that might be the carefully chosen words, the frequently changing templates of our blogs, or even some sort of counter or demonstration of our page rank to validate our existence as bloggers. The idea that someone might see us as we really are, instead of as who we would like to be and how we would like to be seen, can produce a lot of fear and anxiety.
Yet there is something that might be even more fear invoking, the idea or realization that all our efforts to make ourselves up really don’t matter, that when we appear without our makeup, no one would know the difference. There may be some gender aspects to this as well. When I get a hair cut, very few people ever notice. More women than men tend to notice, and the same thing applies the other way around. I am much less likely to notice when someone else gets a haircut than my wife is.
Marv sums up the experience this way, “It illustrates the tendency of people to undervalue themselves and give the credit to something else (clothes, makeup, etc) for people being impressed with them. One of the great values of group is facing the contrast between our version of ourselves and what others see.”
On the group psychotherapy mailing list, I often try to explore the nature of group interactions online. I’ve learned a lot from the group of group psychotherapists there and have been fascinated by applying the lessons to online communities.
Many of us bloggers are members of informal groups that read each other’s blogs. We may find each other through BlogExplosion, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, EntreCard, CMF Ads, Adgitize, or a host of other ways of connecting. When we comment on each other’s blogs and when we send emails back and forth, we can also experience some of that great value of groups in learning more about the contrast between our version of ourselves and what others see. With that, I want to encourage my fellow bloggers try blogging without makeup.
Blogger’s Notebook
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 20:35Each day, I get hundreds of emails and even more messages on various social networks. Sometimes they are from friends highlighting one new site or another. Others are from public relations professionals hoping that I’ll write something nice about their latest clients. Sometimes there are blog posts that catch my attention that should be highlighted.
I flag them in my email client. I add them to a wiki that I use for tracking interesting topics. I send emails to various people and wait for replies. Many never make it to a full blog post, but some should be highlighted whether or not they will ultimately end up as a full blog post. With that, I want to provide another glimpse into my blogger’s notebook.
Google Adwords
Mar Matthias Darin, whom I first stumbled across via EntreCard has a blog post up about Google being sued for overcharging AdWords customers. Actually, this was a lawsuit from back in 2005 which received class action status and was ruled on earlier this month. I may have also gotten an email about this, but my adwords advertising has been so small it probably isn’t worth the first class postage to join in the settlement.
This Moment
My brother invited me to join him on ThisMoment.com. It is a site to ‘save and share life’s moments’. I tried to join, but was told that it only works for Firefox 3 or IE 8. I’m running Windows NT with Firefox 2 on my primary computer. It is a very old computer that just isn’t worth upgrading, and every once in a while, I run into issues like this. I signed up on my laptop without a problem, and it sent an email to my main computer for verification. I couldn’t even verify my email address with Firefox 2. It did have a link to continue without upgrading. This link did not work. I fired off a comment, and received a prompt reply. The link appears to be working now and I was told that my email address was properly verified. I’ll explore this a bit more later.
MaYoMo
Another interesting site that I received an email about was MaYoMo, Map Your Movements. It is aimed at citizen journalists and there should be news coming soon about it. I’ve sent an email asking for follow up about it, but haven’t received comments yet. Initially, it seemed very slow and kludgy for me, but they look interesting.
Mornflake
An old friend of mine in Britain sent me an email about his blog post about Mornflake’s Video Competition Mornflake is using a site called uVizz. That’s another site worth checking out, although I probably won’t make a Mornflake video unless someone sends me a box of their cereal from the U.K.
BurstMedia
Jarvis Coffin, CEO of BurstMedia. Mr. Coffin wrote a blog post about how Advertising must feel the human condition. It was in response to my blog post, Numerati, Creatives, and the Human Condition. He did a good job of taking the ball I was running with, and carrying it a little further down the field. I’ve been meaning to pick up that thread and talk more about his comments, but just haven’t gotten a chance to yet.
Ruth Madoff and Ronn Torossian, CEO of 5W Public Relations
Today, I received a brief email from Lauren Bishop of 5W Public Relations highlighting Ronn Torossian’s comments about Ruth Madoff’s Statement. Lars Toomre, with whom I’ve done a lot of financial services work, wrote a blog post about Ruth Madoff back in March. It seems to fit nicely with what Ms. Bishop has written about Mr. Torossian’s comments, and perhaps I’ll find some time to follow up on this a little later.
Group Psychology of Twitter
The other day, I received a fascinating email from Peter Howie who writes the Moreno Collegium Blog. It explored the nature of how groups behave and related it to discussions in Twitter. I really want to find a chance to explore this a bit further. I’ve also started to explore the streaming API for Twitter, especially as it relates to efforts to connect Twitter to various Complex Event Processing systems like Streambase.
SIFMA
Personally, I found the discussions about CEP and Twitter one of the more interesting topics at this year’s SIFMA conference. I have a lot to say about the SIFMA show on several topics. This remains on my blogger’s notebook, and it isn’t likely to be very friendly to the organizers at SIFMA. The folks listed above understand how the world is changing and it seems like the folks at SIFMA don’t.
There are plenty of other stories that I’m following, but this highlights a few of them. So, tell me, what do you find interesting? Is there something I should have on my radar that I don’t yet?
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit, #afn, #jjb, #etc
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 06/01/2009 - 09:15Like every month, I start off my blog posts with “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit”, based on the childhood meme that saying this would bring good luck for the month. I may need a bit of luck to get through the first few days of this month.
Currently, I am sitting on the Bloggers Boulevard at the America’s Future Now conference in Washington DC. I’ll try to get some of my other work done while I’m here, but I expect the conference will take up much of my focus. This is followed by Internet Week in NYC. There are a lot of neat events happening there as well, and I’ll miss the first few days.
As a note to people that follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, or similar sites, be prepared for a lot of tweets from me over the coming week.
Back in Connecticut, it is the final few days of the regular session of the Connecticut General Assembly. My email box is full of messages about bills which may or may not see the light of day on the floor of the house, as well as messages asking me to encourage Gov. Rell to sign one bill or another. Kim is likely to be working long hours as well as she works to shepherd her bills through the State Legislature.
Also in Connecticut this evening is the 61st annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey dinner, a fundraiser for the Connecticut Democratic Party. There is bound to be plenty of positioning, both publicly and privately for various slots on upcoming tickets.
State Representative James Spallone will be testing the waters with his exploratory committee, hoping to gather support for a run for Secretary of State. With his experience as chair of the Government Administration and Elections Committee, Co-Chair of the Municipal Ethics Task Force and Vice Chair of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Spallone is well positioned for the run.
Others are bound to speculate whether or not Attorney General Dick Blumenthal might be in line for some sort of Federal Judgeship in the event that Judge Sotomayor gets confirmed and opens up a slot at the Second Circuit.
It will also be interesting to watch the positioning in the 2010 U.S. Senate race. While Sen. Dodd is widely respected, there are two Democratic candidates exploring a race. Merrick Alpert is busy repeating Republican talking points on Fox News and not managing to add any substance to the discussion. Roger Pearson has been quietly placing calls and visiting Democratic Town Committee meetings and seems to be more focused on a serious discussion about the issues with the incumbent Senator. We will see which, if either of these strategies gains any traction.
On Tuesday, the positioning will continue on the local level as Genevieve Salvatore is expected to announce an exploratory committee in Milford for a possible run for Mayor.
With all of this, it would be great to simply collapse next weekend and try to recover, but that isn’t likely either. The Massachusetts Democratic Party will be holding their annual convention in Springfield. I plan on covering a little bit of this, as well as speaking on a panel.
Before I know it, I will be saying “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit” to great the month of July. I’ve got plenty scheduled for that month as well, but hopefully many of the events will be much more restful. With all of that, if you don’t see me as much on some of the more social blogging sites over the coming days, I’m not leaving, I’m just swamped.
Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 18:58The idyllic evening light faded on the children as they ran across the school ground. Inside, parents were chatting over the remains of a potluck dinner. It had brought back memories of my childhood, when I was one of the children running with the pack. The only thing that was missing was the fireflies, but it was still a little too chilly and too early in the year for them to be out. Sure, I spent time talking about town politics with new friends and Kim was at home feeling ill, but perhaps it was all that simple.
That was last night at the Multi-Age Group dinner at Beecher Road School in Woodbridge, CT. This morning, we continued with the spring idylls. Yes, the first stop was to get new medications for Kim, but while she was waiting to have her prescription filled, Fiona and I raced across the street to buy seeds and gardening tools.
Our yard is mossy and well shaded; not a prime location for a vegetable garden. We still manage to dry our clothes outside, and I gathered in some clothes this morning before the coming rain.
For our garden, the town of Woodbridge has community gardens. People can go rent a nice sunny and fertile plot of land to grow their own vegetables. We currently get our vegetables from a local community supported agriculture, or CSA farm. For our small family, we have difficulties using up all the vegetables we get each week. We don’t really need to raise additional vegetables.
Yet for me, the eighty dollars that we’ve spent on tools, seeds and the plot itself is perhaps more about relaxation, therapy, exercise and education for Fiona than about whatever we might ever get for food from our garden.
Our plot has lain fallow for a few years, and needs a lot of work. We’ve been doing all of it by hand, slowly clearing a bed and in the process discovering a small rose bush we hope to nurture back to health. Yet today, a man with a tractor at a neighboring plot offered to plow the whole plot under for us. We gladly took him up on the offer and when he was done, we started our planting.
At home in the evening, we had a simple meal; sausage, roasted potatoes and salad. The sausage was raised here in Connecticut and salad was made from greens in our CSA box. We washed it down with some hard cider that we had brewed from fresh cider from a local cider mill and bottled last fall.
Soon, we will sit back and watch a video that we checked out of the local library as we wait for the band of thunderstorms expected to pass through in the middle of the night.
Yes, it could be that it was all that simple then. It could be that through the current economic woes, more of us will find our way back to the simple pleasures of yesteryear. If so, wave at me when you pull up weeds in your plot in the community garden. I’ll give you a hand the way a neighbor gave me a hand today, and perhaps we can all share a couple bottles of home brewed hard cider afterwards.
A Mother's Day Reflection
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 05/10/2009 - 10:26Over at Duck and Wheel with String, Lin has a wonderful reflection on Mother's Day cards.
She writes:
I have this theory about Mother's Day. Did you ever take a good look at the Mother's Day cards? They all show the mom with her apron on, surrounded by her family. She's standing there smiling with all the kids around her, and Dad's there--I think he's smiling too. Then there is lots of mushy writing about how wonderful mom's are and how much we love them and all that stuff...blah, blah, blah.
Then look at Father's Day cards. There's Dad on the hammock--alone. He's on the golf course--alone. Then he's taking a nap on the couch--alone. Where is the picture of him being surrounded by his obnoxious smiling family??? They always show the dad enjoying his peace and quiet, while the stupid mom cards have her spending even more time with the kids--like she needs more of that. And there are always fewer sappy words on Father's Day cards too. Always.
Me? I want the Dad card.
It made me think of a discussion I had with Kim the other day about the chocolates that we always get one another on days like these.
I left the following comment over on Lin's blog:
The other day, my wife told me that she doesn't really like those truffles I get her every year for Mother's day. She really wanted a different sort of truffles. I was shocked. I've been getting her my favorite type of truffles all these years. She's always been getting me her favorite type of chocolates on Father's day as well. They are okay, but not as good as the ones I always got for my wife.
Perhaps, that is the real hidden secret. On Mother's Day, Father's Day, and other such holidays, we get our beloved what we think they would like. We think they would like it, because it is the things we would like.
So yes, perhaps all us Fathers are out getting Mother's Day cards reflecting the joy of the family, because that is what we really want. Perhaps all of the Mothers will go out and get cards reflecting what they really want, a chance to simply relax alone on the hammock.
I hope you have a wonderful Mother's day. Enjoy the game.
However you choose to celebrate Mother's Day, I hope it is a wonderful day. Here in Connecticut, the sun is shining after what feels like forty days and forty nights. It is still chilly, but where headed off to the beach, to just chill.
