Conservative MP Garth Turner was turfed from the Conservative causcus yesterday because of his blog, the Turner Report.  The Conservatives cited confidentiality concerns.

I like this guy, I don’t agree with him on much politically, but I really like his take on democratic engagment.  His blog has unmoderated comments, and he participates in conversations with people who comment.  This type of front line engagement with constituants is exactly what we need in politics today.  Few people don’t feel threatened by the openness of social media, but this guy is absolutely fearless.

But there is a political blogging lesson in this.  If you are the maverick MP with differing opinions from your causus, I’m not sure that I would use my blog to further the debate.  What is said in Causus, should stay in causcus.  But that doesn’t mean that he should not engage in discussion.  By all means, write about the important issues and express your opinion.  But don’t be an idiot and tip your bosses hand.  That’s the kind of move that’ll get you fired.  And it did.

So as much as I like the guys “people first” attitude, I wish he handled this with a little more tact.  As much as I cringe everytime I read the “reaganomic” basis for his financial policy, I like having someone in the conservative causcus who will ask questions and disagree.  Disagreements lead to discussions, and good heated discussion inherently sqashes dictatorial leadership. 

We are worse off with this guy at home.

PS: Check out the comments in yesterdays post.  Gosh I’m glad I don’t hang out with hardened conservatives.  They might start calling me a commie, and I hate that. 

Last night I had a couple of beers with Jim and Kelly from Volunteer Abroad.  VA is an organization that hooks up students with aid projects in six countries.  They train new volunteers so that they can get by in the language and not get robbed at every turn.  They do a direct connect of the resources (people) to the organizations in county.  Much of the travel industry (and more specifically volunteer aid orgs) are mired in mark ups and dubious ethics.  Not these guys, they are the real deal, doing good things for real people.

They have set up houses in all of the countries in which they operate, and they just moved into a great head office here in Kingston.  (A huge old limestone in the downtown that is just perfect for the 24/7 work that they do.)

I’ve been friends with Jim for years now, and have watched as he has nurtured VA into what it is today.  He’s the CEO of the company, and a very cool guy.

The reason we met up was to talk about social media and blogging for his company and how they should go about implementing things.  It really is a perfect company for a blogging initiative.  They are doing good/ ethical work, they have some PR issues that have more to do with the industry rather then their business, and they have well educated and passionate people working for them. 

I’m looking forward to continuing these conversations with them.  Good karma all around.

Things have been very busy these days.  After the worlds, I got back to a desk full of paperwork to catch up, project deadlines looming and a massive amount of house work (Update: Alison was a superstar with house work while I was gone, she always makes sure that things are clean when I get home from an event) and projects that had been neglected for quite a while.

But these are not reasons to stop writing.  Writing a blog entry usually takes me half an hour tops.  In reality, I’ve been feeling out of touch with things.  I read the news everyday, read my favorite bloggers every day, and try to keep up with all of the inputs that I have.  But I feel I have some kind of void in my intellectual life these days and it took me a while to figure out what it was.

Reading books.  I have a reading pile at home that is getting taller than I am and as we get to the dog days of summer, I am realizing that I haven’t been reading enough.  It’s amazing how you can read about current events and opinion everyday, and still feel starved for a new perspective; new (or old) words.

So over the past few weeks, I’ve taken a break from adding my opinion to the mix, and have tried to invest some time in developing myself.  The stack is a little smaller now, and I have a weekend at the cottage ahead of me.  I have at least two, maybe three, books to get through.  When I get back I promise not to be writing book reviews for weeks.  (Although I’m sure to have some interesting thoughts on my reading.)

I’ll be back soon, hopefully refreshed and hopefully a little more positive and lively. 

Mike Rohde wrote the other day on a podcast that addressed the concept of “Continuous Partial Attention”.  As Mike points out, this is not about multitasking, but the continuous monitoring of possible inputs from technology.  It also is based on the premise that the modern geek is constantly connected to the “Network”.  I count myself among these modern geeks.

I should start this out by defining what my inputs are.  Throughout the day, I get information delivered to me via my palm Treo.  This could just as easily be my work computer or my home computer, but I have routed everything through my treo, as it is the one computer that is on my person all day. 

Throughout the day I am notified of things that are happening right now.  I get email from more than five accounts, I’m notified about breaking news, I get email notifications of blog comments, I get text messages from friends and family, meeting reminders, task reminders, and of course phone calls.  All of these inputs make my phone vibrate on my hip, and I admit that I almost always pull it out to see what the alert is about.

I say almost, because there are times when it is simply rude to stop the conversation and look at my treo.  I’m not one of those people that will drop a person to person conversation in order to check my treo.  I get too many inputs for that.  To be polite, I simply silence the phone in my pocket without taking it out.  I have it set up to remind me of these things in five minutes.

Being constantly connectted certainly does offer the opportunity for distraction.  But I prefer not to look at it that way.  It is always my choice to respond to an alert or phone call, or email.  Personally, I find it remarkably convienient, to have real time delivery of my relevant information.  If something is time sensitive, then I can respond.  If it is not time sensitive, then I can mark it for future processing and deal with it at an appropriate time. 

But all of this comes back to the concept of attention.  I’m notoriously ADD, and I am often scattered and bouncing from one thing to another.  But my assitant is constantly bring me back to the present moment, delivering information needed right now.  All of my daily tasks are scheduled at times when I am likely to have the time to act on the reminder, so I tend to get things at appropriate times.  (For example, my regular house work reminders are scheduled half an hour after I arrive home from work.)  It allows me to manage my time and attention and supplies me with enough information to make adjustments to things on the fly. 

There are some tools that help filter the inputs based on time and context.  I use Callfilter to regulate phone calls and sms messages throughout my day.  Personal calls get routed to voicemail directly during working hours, and the phone radio gets turned off completely when I am in a meeting.  This is just another layer of directing inputs appropriately.

It has taken some time to get my inputs to an acceptable level, and to gain control of when these things are delivered. Even now I get the occasional glitch that causes a completely inappropriate alert, but they are few and far between now.

I honestly don’t feel taxed by this type of networked living.  Being a node on the network doesn’t cause anxiety or adrenaline pumped days.  (Although some of the content can induce anxiety sometimes…)  All of these inputs allow me to particiate at work, in life at the yacht club, in my family life, and in the blogosphere. 

So what do you think?  Are you at peace with your “connection” or do you long for the days when things were simpler and slower.  Leave me a comment, and I promise I’ll read it promptly, although it may take a little time for me to respond.

– Cross posted to nathanbaron.worpress.com –

A little while back I alluded to a “Surprise to Come”.  Well the time has come my friends. 

I’ll be moving my digital house to a new spot with a new address.  I purchased two new URLs www.withoutletters.com and www.nathanbaron.com, both of which will take you to my new home.

For those of you that are subscribed to the RSS feed, you will need to change it to the new one.  http://withoutletters.com/feed/  Sorry, I could figure out a way to post to both simultaneously.

If you make the crossing, you’ll see that there is still work to be done, and I hope to get some more graphics set up and sort out some things in my side bar.  I have been able to import all of my past posts but unfortunately I wasn’t able to bring comments across to the new blog.  I will keep this space open  for as long as Wordpress.com will let me, so if you are in dire need of view past comments you can check back here.

This also seems like a good time to thank all of you.  I’ve really enjoyed watching the traffic go up and hearing feedback from people.  I must admit that I would probobly keep doing this even if no one decided to read, but I am so happy that people find what I have to say interesting enough to keep coming back.

So thank you my friends.  I hope you will keep on reading the thoughts of this man without letters.

Since I started blogging, I’ve been using the free hosted services at Blogger, Wordpress, and Livejournal.  These solutions are great but the customization leaves a lot to be desired.  So switching to the installed version of wordpress seemed like a good move.  It allows me to use my own domain names and customize to my hearts content.

It is a little intimidating at first.  I know a tiny bit off html, and I have modified CSS before, but I am way not that geek.  Not yet anyway. 

I’m not sure when I’ll be moving shop yet though.  I would like to do some more work on my theme and side bars, and populate some data before I go live.  It would be great if I could import all my wordpress.com posts here.  I’m going to look into that.

Anyway, just my first thougts.  I’m sure that there will be more on this new blogging platform.