One person certain to be a part of “those remembered” TV specials and top ten lists of all kinds is Steve Jobs. While many think of the Macintosh introduction in 1984 as the start of Apple fan-boys, my appreciation for Apple goes back even further. Upon arriving as a freshman to WHS in 1981 (Good god, have I really been diddling with computers for 30 years now…), I was genuinely intrigued by these interesting black Bell & Howell computers being used in the library and for gaming/warring conventions (this was also around the same time as my brief foray into Dungeons and Dragons). It turns out that these computers were basically Apple II’s in slight disguise and so began a 20 year admiration for just about everything Apple and certainly a strong respect for Steve Jobs and Woz as founders of the company. To this day, I still believe that Woz (Steve Wozniak) was really the brains behind the creation of the very first Apple and Mr. Jobs was always about sales and marketing (and eventually design at all costs). And if I’ve said it once, I’ve probably said it 13 times, if you know how to market, you can do just about anything.

Following Steve’s death this past year, there were so many tributes, quotes, Youtube videos, commercials, magazine covers and such that it became just a bit too much. While the old advertising adage says “sex sells”, so to does death. Probably the most circulated, or viral video following his death seems to be Steve’s commencement address in 2005 to a graduating class at Stanford, two years after his diagnosis for pancreatic cancer. Here’s the quote from within that speech that I posted on my Facebook wall on Oct 6th:

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

-Steve Jobs (2005)

Are you following your heart? What are your dreams for your coming years? I don’t care about what your goals were when you were 8, 18 or 28, but what is important to you now? Just a few months ago, Aimee and I fulfilled an important dream by moving to North Carolina. And, even beyond that, moving to Carolina Beach, NC – a great coastal community with a strange, almost artistic mix of full-time residents and tourists. We truly love it here and have absolutely no regrets about the compromises or costs that have been made in order for us to be here every day. We sometimes feel guilty about shopping for Christmas trees in shorts and flip-flops, or Coastal Carolina BBQ for our Christmas dinner or even today, Dec 31, when the high will likely be near 70. But that guilt doesn’t last for long. As someone wise, probably a southerner, once said; God doesn’t give extra credit for living in crappy places.

As the new year arrives, and another year gets added to our lives, please remember that your life is now. Take some time on Sunday, January 1 to restate, commit to your dreams by writing your top 5 or 10 life goals; print them out and post them on your bathroom and closet doors. Do something every day that gets you closer to at least ONE of those goals. Each time Aimee and I took one more step to help us get to NC, I would state out loud: “Progress!” or “Momentum!” until it actually became a joke between us. Your true goals need to become projects, high priority projects, because they are really meaningless unless you are actually proactive about their accomplishment. There may be a lot of little bumps and shifts that eventually lead to a titanic change, but this is your only life.

Happy New Year Friends.

-pjc

PS: The stars must be in alignment again as I start to think about online radio again and the top five things I did wrong with 80sAirwaves as a business. Wheels are turning, but very slowly. Stay tuned!

Within the past month, we sold our CT home and have once again moved nearly 1,000 miles south to Wilmington, North Carolina. Not Wilmington proper, mind you, but close enough so that most people outside NC are ignorant of where Wilmington is, so we can say we moved here and people nod unknowingly. And now, having learned our CT home lesson, we are taking our time to get familiar with the areas in an around Wilmington and the personalities of the people here.

But before I get too in-depth about the geography, let me address the “why” question you may be asking. “If you have your own businesses, and can live and work anywhere, why in the world would you choose Wilmington?” Glad you asked. Over the past 10 years, we’ve been visiting NC and hitting the major cities (Charlotte and Raleigh) and many minors ones too. We’ve spent time down in South Carolina and traveled through the eastern seaboard enough to establish the following:

Florida is not even an option – too much heat, too much age (I actually saw two cars collide in slow motion during a not-so-recent business trip).

Georgia has a bit of coast, but with the time spent in Savanna and Tybe Island, it seemed small, both mentally and physically.

South Carolina is just a bit too much “south” for my liking. People are still fighting mental wars there and keeping the rebel flag alive, along with all of it’s psychological misgivings.

While some parts of Virginia are “south” enough, it’s proximity to Washington DC (and especially New Jersey) make it a haven for the summer parade of minivans wrapped tight with bikes, boards and crying babies.

But each of our vacation trips to North Carolina never ceased to draw us in with it’s low cost of living, friendly people who are culturally diverse and weather conditions that make is possible to not own a window scraper for each car. Wilmington, NC itself is a very historical port town – meaning that it’s haunted as hell and still has some amazing homes and beautiful buildings from the civil war era. It’s a college town too (UNCW) – meaning that you have a wonderful mix of pubs, boutiques, art galleries, theaters (stage & film), book and music stores, cafes and amazing restaurants. And similar too San Antonio’s or Savanna’s riverwalks, many of these downtown establishments are either along and steps away from the Cape Fear river. Which is at its most scary when you can actually tides, waves and ripples all moving in opposite directions!

But beyond the Cape Fear running along the Western edge of Wilmington, a 15-20 minute drive east can put you into a variety of beach communities, including Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach and Kure Beach (pronounced “cur-ray” by the locals). And if there’s any prerequisite we have, for where we live long term, it has got to be near the water. Really not sure if it’s our astrological signs (I am an Aquarius so that makes immediate sense), but we’ve always migrated toward the water and have always been happiest when large bodies of water were close by.

So now that we have moved to our ideal state, living in our ideal area, where do we actually want to live? The good news is that we found an off-season rental here on Carolina Beach, allowing us another six months before tourist season starts up again and we need to vacate our 3 bedroom, 3 bath, 3 floor duplex on “stilts” that sleeps 17, and is just two blocks from a very beautiful public beach. While six months should be enough time to determine our future “living” location, already in our first four weeks we’ve done a lot of exploring and are already starting to form biases and opinions:

Downtown Wilmington: One important detail missed while describing Wilmington earlier is a vibrant television and film industry entrenched here, mostly thanks to a Screen Gems Studio getting started many years ago. While most notably the home for the current TV series One Tree Hill, this past week it was announced that most of Iron Man 3 will be shot within our local studios, which was exciting news for most people here. I add this in because the cast of characters within the downtown area is a strange mix of college students, retirees, tourists, artists, homeless, Hollywood actors and film types, as well as pretty normal folks who find the rest of the other folks intriguing and interesting. There are certainly some shady parts of the downtown, but for the most part it’s a pretty peaceful and pleasant place to be. Would I want to live there full-time? The jury’s still out.

Suburban Wilmington: While the “metro” area of outside of Wilmington is pretty average, the eastern suburbs (including areas such as Masonboro, Bayshore and Ogden) all feature the expected trappings of a suburban life: large strip centers (Mayfaire), McMansions and import car dealerships with the 2012’s in-stock now to one-up those damn Jones’ next door. Along with the increase in incomes, comes ever-expanding subdivisions of new homes. Follow Masonboro or Greenville Loop roads and you’ll find a wide range of subdivisions, with typically the lesser expensive area on the left (west) and the closer to the water options to your right. You can spend hours just driving each of these little pockets of homes, and we have, to determine which one suits you and your lifestyle. Or maybe the answer is none.

Carolina Beach: With just four weeks of residency on this island town, we’ve already gotten to know many locals by name, are being recognized at our favorite shops and restaurants and may have already planted the seeds for a friendship or two. Historically Carolina Beach (CB) has been referred to as “Redneck Beach” and it doesn’t take long to understand why. Amongst a few 10 story, Oceanside hotels, you’ll find $750,000 beach homes standing proudly next to $20,000 trailers dropped as “new” on lots back in 1972. Being in a small community like this (less than 6,000 permanent residents) we have the ability to ride our bikes in order to handle most of our day-to-day tasks. Riding by bike also allows us to see numerous empty lots for sale, spec homes going up and more new “tropical” neighborhoods being developed. At least they seem more tropical than what’s being established on the “loop” roads, but maybe its the preponderance of freshly planted palms. But as we slowly move out of the tourist season we are quickly being embraced by the local community. And community is truly the best word to describe the openness and happiness witnessed on a daily basis within CB. We’ve truly lost track of how many strangers, upon hearing of our recent relocation, have welcomed us to North Carolina and told us how much we will love living here. If this is redneck hospitality, I’m all for it. Just don’t ask me to hang a rebel flag from my Jeep at any point soon. Now a Jolly Rodger on the other hand…

Monkey Junction got its name back in the day as a bus-stop that had a make shift zoo to keep tourists and enlisted soldiers entertained (with Monkey’s as it turns out). Today, there are still many businesses and local references to Monkey Junction, but for the census department, map makers and other government officials mostly refer to this area as Myrtle Grove. This is basically the last designated area before crossing the Snows Cut bridge to get on to Pleasure Island (and into the city of Carolina Beach). This may be an ideal spot as it still presents easy bicycle access to Carolina Beach (though it would require a trip over the massive bridge (which might be dangerous given our widely fluctuating levels of sobriety)) as well as being a few minutes closer to downtown Wilmington. Just like many other areas outside of Wilmington, new subdivisions have started to regain momentum with very affordable new homes starting as low as $125,000.

As we continue our exploration and adventures over the remaining months, it’s likely that these opinions will shift and change, but our underlying happiness remains. We are where we want to be and whether we’re purchasing soon, building new or continuing to rent, our joy about being here certainly borders on bragging to our friends and family back in New England and the upper-Midwest. When asked “how are things going?” it’s very difficult not to share the excitement and happiness we have. We have really determined that no matter where you are, you will always worry about having a good job: If you have your own business, you will always worry about having enough customers/clients and what the competition might be doing. But if you’re living where you want to live, then those worries are lessened and you work that much harder in order to stay where you really want to be.

1. Borders: When I learned that Borders was closing stores early in the year, I was relived to learn that the location near my work place had survived the cut. That was short term. Today, that former Borders is another empty hole in a strip center with a “For Lease” sign covering the windows. While I generally used Borders as a newstand to buy the latest issues of my favorite magazines, the books, DVDs and occasional CDs I still purchase mostly come via eBay and gently used Amazon resellers (describe in December). The closing of all national Borders should be a concern to everyone, but so far only employees seem displaced and disgruntled by the turn of events. Personally, I think there would be a place for $5 book, CD, DVD retail store (used & new blended like Half-Price Books does so well) to compete with the likes of… Well, who was the competition for Borders? Barnes & Noble? Wal-Mart? Amazon and their Kindle? Do people read any more anyway?

2. Roku: For Christmas, Mrs. Claus (my wife), bought me a shiney new Roku box for our TV. The Roku tied into our high-speed wireless network immediately and within minutes I was selecting channels from my new toy. Current Roku “Channles” include; Amazon Instant Video, Revision 3, Weather Underground, Roku Newscaster, My Damn Channel (I LOVE Cookin’ with Coolio), Khan Academy, The TWiT Network, Vajra TV (go Buddhists!), Chow, TED, blip.TV, UFC, Hulu Plus and Crackle (reruns of Good Times cannot be underestimated!). So between Netflix offering 12,000 movies available instantly and Amazon Instant providing hundreds of the most current rental options (we’ve seen The Fighter, Inception & Black Swan) and our Hulu Plus queue keeping our TV reality current with Shark Tank, Food Revolution and 30 Rock, we now watch about physical DVD/Blu-Ray once a month, maybe.

3. HDMI Laptop: The second shift was when my former laptop took a turn for the worse at the start of the year, I began researching my options and ended up with a Toshiba with a HDMI output. With a 12′ HDMI cable and a dual monitor setting, I can write this post on my laptop screen while our 32″ LCD displays a wide-variery of YouTube videos, full online episodes of Amazing Race & Celebrity Apprentice (not available on Hulu directly) and any other movies or videos I happen to downloading using… OTHER services. Plus, the same laptop is connected via USB to a hard drive dock that contains a total of 3 terrabytes of storage. Why did I download all seasons and all episodes of the Odd Couple? Because I can. And because they weren’t available yet on Netflix or Crackle.

4. Netflix: While we had Netflix on the Nintendo Wii for many months prior to getting the Roku box, the Wii does not provide high definition out. A single HDMI connector handles both high-definition video and full-surround sound audio with ONE cable! Further, for whatever reason, our Wii seemed very forgetful about our local wireless network and so it sits collecting dust, waiting for us to check our weight and balance with Wii Fit. But the Netflix service continues to expand the available selection of instant, on-demand movies and TV shows. While not available for my Andoid (yet), my wife’s iPhone can tie in with our Netflix queue and pull any of that same content from wherever we are. While not as popular as Pandora for her, the idea of streaming music, movies or TV shows to a small device, like a phone, iPad or highly portal Roku box keeps us entertained anywhere we so desire.

5. Rdio & Google Music: While I was impressed with my former trial period of Rdio perviously, and how cool it was to tell my android to play a song, and it did, it simply wasn’t worth the $4.95 per month charge. But I really like the idea of being able to stream any music, in good quality whenever I wanted. Both Google and Amazon have recently announce a beta launch for a new music services that promises the same, plus more. Not only can you stream your music on demand, but with the Google service you can “pin” music to your device which uses your local storage to save your most important music, audio books, etc. to the device directly for flawless playback regardless of data network coverage.

So now, as me and Mrs. Claus prepare to move our entire lives again, I’m taking a long hard look at these hundreds of movies, music DVDs and CDs and wondering, what REALLY matters? What would NOT be available through these various services?
The surprising answer is… not much.

The first step, as they say, is admitting you have an issue. Been there, done that. So I have an obsession, addiction, predilection, fascination, call it what you will, but I am a pure at heart music fan. My disposable income, which seems like a term that is dangerous to use these gray days, is mostly focused on biographies of musicians (books), CDs, music DVDs, “limited” edition box sets of sorts or some combination of the three. While this would probably be an acceptable hobby if I were just focused on a particular artist, say Bruce Springsteen, or a particular genre, say Ska, life would be okay as I would grow old with my strange fandom and highly obsessive “record collector” like state. But I am way too distracted to be interested in any one of anything for any prolonged period of time.

So, down to my “process” for buying what and why: Most of my casual web browsing time is spent looking through the music bios & DVDs currently being auctioned on eBay. That’s where things tend to start. I almost never pay any attention to the buy-it-now prices unless they are substantially below the $5 or $10 marks. Probably 90% of my individual purchases are less than $10 each. These constant auctions of music bio books, CDs and DVDs allow me to see whats coming up and I will tend to peruse within the next 24 hours of auction endings. When I find something of interest with few or zero bids that seems to priced reasonably, I’ll flip over to my Amazon tab.

While the world knows about Amazon as a resource for buying anything NEW, fewer know they also have a good history of things that were new 25 years ago and are no longer available. Vintage paperback, hardcovers, CDs and DVDs that are now long out of print with details about page counts, running times, photographs and illustrations and, to some degree, publishing dates of both the original hardcover and paperbacks (where applicable). Beyond these pertinent details, Amazon also provides user ratings. So while there are always cheap books, if the publication isn’t worth the paper it was printed on, I don’t need it for my shelves either. I only want the best of the bunch, given my affliction and my limited budget.

So I will ping-pong back and fourth between eBay’s auctions ending soonest and Amazon’s reviews and ratings to help me identify what is most likely a value. Frequently… okay 50% of the time, those “deals” that appear on eBay are actually cheaper when researched on Amazon. And almost as often, not only is the item cheaper, but its from a more reputable seller (Amazon’s used products feature Seller rankings similar to eBay).

Before continuing further, please let me remind the kind reader that I do NOT consider myself a book collector. To reiterate, I am a music fan and I don’t get too stressed about first editions or hardcovers vs soft. Honestly, the condition of the book is not a major factor, though most of my actual purchases are at least Very Good condition or better. And yes, I am disappointed when I receive a book that was formerly a library book if the description didn’t mention that important detail… but I’m not a book collector. Got it?

Moving beyond a well rated book and a valid price point from a reputable seller, the last bit I’m looking for is scarcity: In other words, is this still available NEW from Amazon? If so, my interest is lessened. Clearly books, CDs, DVDs and now even Blu-Ray’s will go out of print (OOP) for a reason and by doing so, that factor usually increases the future value of that item. And while I’m not buying these items for future value or investment, it is reassuring to know the book you bought for $2 last month is now selling for $30 because everyone’s realized that they are not likely to re-print that import biography on Peter Gabriel again.

So there we have it. To review this now concerns me. At one point I shared an office with a woman who was an obsessive shopper and she literally made me ill with all that she bought for the sake of a “good deal”. Hopefully I’ve not offended others in a similar way. Regardless, I have other important issues to attend to… like listening to some good music and curling up with a good book!

So having been following author Clay Sharky since his impressive 2008 gel appearance that I began to take interest in his theories and writings. His latest book, Cognitive Surplus, does a great job of detailing what we do when there’s nothing we NEED to do. According to Clay, the world has over a trillion hours of free time each year to commit to projects. So what actually takes up our time and why? In the decades past we have become masters of consumption, but we also like to create and we like to share (enter Facebook).

The jury may still be out on where Facebook ranks on that scale of rewarding versus useless activities, but given my recent awareness of Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus, and my initial refrain and then submission to Facebook, and being a technologist at heart, I couldn’t help but sink my teeth into this technical story and interview with Facebook’s Systems Engineer, Tom Cook. The story is a bit dated; it’s before their recent 500 Million member milestone, but that’s probably a benefit to my point. But the two important facts about FB mentioned are in the first bullet point and the paragraph just above it:

200 Million Users Use FB every day.

Those users spend 16 Billion minutes on FB every day.

That means the average FB user spends an hour and 20 mins on FB each day. Not that impressive; as a nation the USA still spends more time in front of the TV. But 16 BILLION minutes per day, collectively on FB. If I did my math correctly;

16 billion minutes is equal to 266.66 million hours.
266.66 million hours is equal to 11.11 million days.
11.11 million days is equal to 370 thousand months (at an average of 30 days each).
370,370 months is equal to 30,441 years.
And, if according to Google, the average life expectancy of an adult is 78.5 years; 30,441 years would equal 387.79 adult LIFETIMES.

So, yes, nearly 388 lifetimes daily spent, wasted, enriched, fulfilled, shared, whatever, on Facebook. Personally, I think it’s probably best if we all go back to watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island while drinking gin.

-pjc

Clearly my four years (and counting) here in Connecticut have caused me to be a bit more thick skinned, fast thinking and self-important than what the midwest was capable of instilling in me after nearly 40 years. Nonetheless, I haven’t lost any sense of the plain facts that the words we chose, the actions we take and the decisions we make send ripples of effect across our small worlds. We always have the ability to choose between being kind, being neutral and being mean. Not just with others, but even with decisions we make for ourselves and the responsibilities we either take on or ignore. A failure to accept our own personal responsibilities seems to be a plague for our current times. A friend recently told me about a couple he knew that, while married adopted a child, but upon separation, both simply abandoned this young person.

And while no one actually makes the right decisions all the time, or engage in their lives responsibly for all of their lives, past performance should not be an indicator of future performance. Change can happen at any time and this IS your life. Just because you were a bitch to your son for 60+ years doesn’t mean you need to continue that habit to the grave. Just because you were a financial burden on your family for the past 50 years, doesn’t mean that you need to continue that trend and force your poor habits and decisions on your children. Just because you’ve been estranged from your son/daughter/mother/father for 15 years doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the phone; believe me, I know. Further, if you were to look at your life without your handy rose tinted glasses, you just might see an opportunity to actually leave this place and these people in a better and positive way.

This is also a good time to call on the perpetual victims as well. Facebook and Twitter seems clogged with so many martyrs who spend their time talking about all the great things that they are doing for others despite the fact that no one ever does any favors for them. They quietly seek your sympathy, pity and attention while submitting themselves to more self-fulfilling punishment and humiliation. What’s really unfortunate about these folks is that there are too busy attempting to get attention to notice that everyone else is living their lives, dealing with the troubles and heartache that is a part of life and they are spending their life waiting for some perceived redemption and reward for all the terrible ills they’ve suffered. Newsflash: it’s not happening. Find your spine, take care of yourself because no one else will and become independent and not co-dependent. If your spouse, parent or significant other does’t come home today, what is Plan B? Do you have one? Have you tested that plan already? Are you happy with it?

Despite the call for more personal independence, the bottom line is that we are all connected. Decisions you make will effect your immediate family, your circle of friends and the ripple continues from that point out. Please stand up, take responsibility for your mental, physical and financial well-being. Do your best not be a burden on anyone for as long as possible and then go one step further to insure that you are a true blessing to those you know and love, not a curse.

-pjc

Just 10 days prior to our big move, after providing a 60 day notice at a company where I worked for over 13 years, my new east coast employer-to-be had a melt-down. I would learn later that this was, most likely, a power-play on his part. An attempt to establish himself as the boss, and the one in control, despite his clearly being clueless. He had provided no details on benefits, no employment agreement, nothing that would indicate that he was taking my start with his company seriously. So I called his bluff and told him I will not be going without those documents. I emailed the recruiter and told him the deal was off and good luck with his psycho client. My intention was to move to North Carolina, jobless, but happy. A day later, the crazy boss-man called and apologized for his behavior and placed blame on just about everyone and everything else, but himself. The documents came through and we spent our fourth of July weekend driving two cars full of our most important possessions east. Our first six days at an extended stay in Meriden, CT was a nightmare story by itself (which CraigsList rescued us from), but I’ll save that story for later.

All of this is simply a pretext to emphasize the fact that social media, way back in 2006, was fairly primitive. LinkedIn represented my entire professional social circle, as Twitter was still just a ‘flicker’ in someone’s eye and Facebook was purely for the current college kids. Today, social media has TRULY empowered everyone to travel and relocate more easily and I am excited about the prospect of not just relocating, but knowing something about the people and places where we might live. Especially since North Carolina never left our hearts during our years here in CT.

Late this past March, I scheduled a special lunch with my current CEO (not the boss outlined above – that gig lasted for eight months before I resigned and then he fired me the next day). I’m not the kind to schedule lunches or meetings unnecessarily, so I’m quite certain he was skeptical but finally in early April we met. I outlined to him my intentions to spend this Summer getting our house ready for sale for Spring of 2011 and that we would be relocating to the Wilmington NC area. I would be establishing my own business (from the dozens of business ideas I posses) and that if there were some possible business partnership for us, following our employee/employer relationship, that we might want to start discussing that. Or not - his call. It was, in essence, a very, very massive notice for him that our current working relationship would have an expiration date, most likely determined by the sale of my house, or determined by him and his response to my very early fair warning.

So far, his response has been very positive. He seems genuinely interested in my business ideas and how he can be involved without getting his existing company shareholders involved (per my specific request). He’s requested a once monthly meeting to talk about the “possibilities’ and how I will be transitioning myself out of his company. We’ll see what happens with my new business(es), but in the meantime, I’ve begun to Fan (or “Like” now) Wilmington businesses on Facebook and I’ve created a special list on Twitter that allows me to stay in the loop with what’s happening in the greater Wilmington / Cape Fear marketplace by following dozens of business, newspapers, magazines and people who tweet frequently about the happenings in this area.

While Twittering to a few of the Wilmington tour companies earlier this week about a scouting trip we are planning for June, a Wilmington Realtor began following me on Twitter. We’ve since messaged one another and I can assure you (and her) that when we start to get serious about buying real estate, she’ll be the first one I call. The Soap Box, a wonderfully strange combination of a Laundromat and Bar/Lounge with frequent live music (open till 2am every night) in Downtown Wilmington, not only has my email address for their newsletter, but their tweets are part of my daily consumption. The Cosmic Kitchen, owned by Chef Chris and his wife Kristin, are prolific tweeters and they frequently promote their food specials via Twitter, which nearly assures my on-going patronage, once we actually get to Wilmington (referred to as ILM by the locals, by the way). I’m also looking forward to spending many hours at Gravity Records and tuning in “The Penguin” (106.7 WUIN) on the radio again soon.

There are many more examples just like this, where it’s become clear to me that after following these people and companies on Twitter and Facebook and Foursquare and CraigsList and Meetup and Google Maps (does that city have a book store?), I have ZERO doubt that our involvement into this new community will be really very positive. We had already decided, four years ago, that North Carolina had the climate we would want, the ocean beaches near-by, the friendly people and the lower-cost of living that was so important to us in a place we would finally call home. Now, with social media as our conduit, we will know the people, places and faces too.

Can’t Hardly Wait!

-pjc

While I would like to convince myself that I am doing my part to try and “discover” a mom & pop business that could be the next great thing, that could be turned into a national franchise, the vast majority of the time things are disappointing: the service, the food consistency, uncertain hours of operation,the experience (or lack thereof) and the list goes on.

I really wish this weren’t the case. I wonder why it is that independently owned business simply don’t get why a Wal-Mart can put them out and what to do about it. Why is it that a local Mexican restaurant is forced to close when a Chilis opens? Why are independent music and book stores are almost as common as phone booths these days?

Even more disturbing is the changing landscapes of our many cities and small towns. Most downtowns have now become ghost towns. Finding a thriving downtown community is truly something unusual – maybe one of the reasons I’m fixated on Middletown, CT so much. The name, the people, the restaurants and pubs, it’s a very unusual and a rare little microcosm. One that I appreciate highly.

Instead big boxes buy up cheap agricultural land on the outskirts of a town, have the town rezone (because where else will we be able to “park 400 cars and did we mention the sales tax revenue benefits?”). Let’s build a few strip centers right next door to the big boxes so people can get something to eat, drop off their dry cleaning and purchase a $4 coffee. Meanwhile the historic district downtown struggles to get businesses to stay and those who do are typical short-term mom & pop affairs: Locals, ‘mompreneurs’ and “Technicians suffering from entrepreneurial seizures” as business guru Michael Gerber so eloquently put it 20+ years ago (read The E-myth). The independent business 95% of the time can’t compete with the national franchises and so residents don’t bother to even drive through downtown, let alone shop there.

It’s all very disturbing and very sad. If we can’t get independent businesses to at least a competitive level with the national chains, then we need to start providing incentives to those franchises to use historic building and spaces. Off-set some of their build-out expenses so they use existing instead of building brand new. Doing what’s right is RARELY in alignment with what’s cost-effective or timely. We need to leave the farmland to farmers and get ourselves out of the strip center mentality that has ruled us for too long. This is less about nostalgia and more about the evolution of retail and business. Back to your roots, back to your towns and back to your local businesses, for better or worse.

-pjc

I was happy to start things off with a new AR demo from the restaurant review company Zagat. Having just recently spent $10 on the full Zagat 2010 guide for my Droid, I was anxious to see what’s next. As opposed to just transforming their print guidebook to digital, Zagat is actually adopting some real AR “point and view” technologies that will be especially helpful in major metro markets (where Zagat is best known anyway). One interesting new function they had was the ability to zoom forward and back amongst the floating restaurant tags while still within the virtual browser. Other apps that I’ve seen require you to set the “visible” distance you want to reach out to BEFORE firing up the virtual browser. After the five minute demo, they allowed five minutes for Q&A from the audience (exactly like Video 2.0 NY Meetup Group does). During the questions, someone asked about a Zagat layer for Layar, to which Ryan Charles smiled and said that something was in the works with Layar but that he couldn’t talk about it. Hopefully my $10 investment will transfer! One feature they need to consider is launching restaurant websites in your default mobile browser of choice (Dolphin) instead of their built-in Zagat browser.

With kudos being foisted upon the Zagat representative for developing a very handy mobile phone rig that attached a video camera and a iphone to the same structure for demo purposes, the next company, Acrossair, was stepping up to the plate. Dana Farbo, president of the company provided a mediocre demonstration of their new AR browser. This is the company responsible for some very niche AR browsers – like subway finder and the Stella Artois finder app. Somehow they came to an epiphany that maybe people will not actually want to download a separate finder app for McDonalds and a separate app for Wendys and a separate app… You get the picture. So Mr. Farbo demonstrated a new ‘super” browser that began to combine these elements together. While I did record the demonstration, the interface was interesting but crowded and not very elegant; very reminiscent of something from the Idiocracy movie or this crazy new “hyper-reality” YouTube video that is both interesting and alarming at the same time. One unique feature I did note about this new browser from Acrossair was the ability to rotate the floating tags without actually having to spin yourself. It seems we are starting gain some real-world, “street” realities about walking around like idiots starring at tiny screens and spinning in circles while the rest of world stares in wonder. I didn’t record the Q&A part of this demo, but I didn’t get any real sense of excitement about what Mr. Farbo brought to the group.

While I thought I had killed a lot of time and resources just getting to this little hour long meet-up, Noora Guldemond, from Metaio, had just travelled from California (via Germany) to demonstrate a project her team is developing for Lego. While she had some difficulty (go full screen for best detail ) getting the webcam to engage because of lighting issues and a flash going off (no thanks to Tish Shute), she did get the demo to work well enough to where people could get the idea: Install a Lego kiosk/scanner in a store, a child walks up to the device, scans the cover of the box (image recognition) and then would see onscreen a working 3D rendering of that specific constructed lego set. The 3D model would have video motion and could be rotated so a child (or adult) could see what that particular set looked like compared to others.

While I have seen this kind of 3D “pop-up” book kind of thing from other recent AR projects, I don’t understand the practical application. Couldn’t we do the EXACT same kind of functionality with a cheaper and more highly evolved (50 years old) barcode scanner (since every Lego box already has a barcode) and the same pre-packaged 3D renderings saved to a SD card and displayed on a 10” OLED? Why is it important that I rotate the box I’m holding as a virtual display platform? The same is true of the recent hype around the Esquire magazine AR issue: Who cares? It’s seems to be the same level of hype as when the CueCat came out in the 90s and was going to “revolutionize” publishing by allowing people to scan an icon in a magazine and get more details about products from advertisers. We have that already – it’s called a website! If Esquire wants to show me more pictures of some nearly naked model in their magazine or the uncensored video interview with Robert Downey Jr., why not just put a note in the magazine that encourages me to go visit a unique URL for that content? Why do I need to set up a webcam and install software to make CG pop-ups jump out of the magazine and videos play stupid messages? I’m not getting it yet – but I am still open to the possibilities. It simply seems we are confusing the 3D models and virtual reality worlds with legitimate uses for augmented reality with no real quantifiable benefit. Noora concluded her five minutes of fame by demonstrating that this new image recognition tool with 3D pop-up book would also work on a portable device. A powerful demonstration, but again, someone could take any of a dozen barcode scanner apps for any portable device and tie it back to a specific 3D model, video, digital coupon, etc. all driven by Lego or Stella Artois or Proctor & Gamble and so forth. Maybe what Lego could focus on instead is something of an AR instruction book, like this demo, that would allow kids to actually construct the theme pictured on the box!

The last demo of the night I was most excited about because it was identified in the AR NY Meetup agenda as the Whisper Deck. Given my recent rants about the need for mobile AR to deliver more audible cues to people and allow them to give verbal commands as opposed to pointing and spinning, I was looking forward to this demonstration. The demo provided by Craig Kapp, an NYU student, was indeed powerful and impressive, as you can see from his own website. One of the factors I didn’t comprehend was his desire to be away from his computer, yet his solution required both of his eyes to be covered with display goggles (HMD) and both ears would be covered with a headset/microphone. What good is it to be disconnected from your desktop if you are still tethered to it anyway and can’t walk because your most important senses are being blocked? I really don’t want to take anything away from what was shown because it was indeed very cool. Everything he built was using off-the-shelf hardware brought together with existing websites (Google (why not Bing visual search?), Google Trends and Wikipedia mostly), a lot of ingenuity and brain power from Mr. Kapp. Clearly the best demo of the night!

While I spent nearly five hours of my life getting to and from this event, I think it was very powerful because it shows some very early stages of what will clearly be a fundamental change in how we see and experience our future world. And, as an entrepreneur, I certainly came away with some solid business ideas that could change industries entirely. I look forward to attending more ARNY meetups in the future and may even make an attempt to attend the national AR event in California in June (with Bruce Sterling as keynote!).

UPDATE: ARNY co-founder, Chris Grayson, posted a much better quality video of the entire demo + Q&A session on Ustream!



-pjc

PS: I certainly realize that many of my recent posts have had little to do with 80s Music, Media, etc., so I have started to develop a separate site/page/brand for Superempower. This may be the last tech/super-empowerment type post I’ll put here on 80sAirwaves. While its not quite ready, if you’re prone to this kind of subject, please fan me at the new Superempower Facebook page or follow my new Superempower alter-ego on Twitter.

While I’ve used a David Bowie/Brian Eno lyric to title this post, there is actually another song, also called “Heroes,” that more accurately reflects this idea of moving beyond “common” from a 1986 duo called David & David, here’s a quote from their song “Heroes”;

…and there comes a time when you cannot turn the other cheek
you have got to ride the ferry
past the battered old bodies of dead, dead dreamers
past the tethered and fettered and desk-bound schemers
past the punks and the drunks and the bad guitar players
and the dewy eyed teenage dragon slayers
- you come to this place where you can say I just want to work with you
as we do the things that we know we have to do
ever hopeful and ever blue,
we do the things that we know we have to do
and though we all know deep down in our hearts
that someday this will all fall apart
for right now
let’s just be heroes

The bar is set low – do what you know you have to do despite the likely result, that it may mean nothing in the end. Because, ultimately, most people do not do the things that they know “deep down in our hearts” are the right things. The average person knows that eating healthy and exercise are the right things to do, but the adult obesity rate in many “developed” countries trends beyond 50%. When was the last time you saw a really fat 80 year old? The average person understands the idea of compound interest and the importance of dollar-cost averaging investments for financial security, yet the vast majority spend more time (and money) on their summer vacation than they do on any kind of long-term investment plans. Did you know that the average US adult reads ONE book per year? The “common” person, as frequently outlined by Confucius, are typically those who lack morality and virtues, something that is certainly not a hot commodity these days. This post isn’t about super-enlightenment, but when was the last time you did something really nice, completely unexpected and completely without the possibility for repayment for someone? Anyone? It seems that here on the east coast, when someone does something nice for you, it’s viewed as a possible ploy for future gain or a sign of weakness. Or both.

Somewhere, in the realm of metrics that measures humans (think of psychometric profiling to the 10th power) in a vast number of ways (Intelligence, Fitness, Memory, Health, Speed, Agility, Social Graph, Net Worth, Morality, Languages, Reputation, Cash Flow, etc.), somewhere, there exists an average. The average person has varying degrees of each of these, but when combined we see a profile of what could represent a “common” or median or average person. My idea is that being not just slightly above that average metric, but multiples of that metric should be our individual goal. We should be pushing the bounds of our human capabilities, instead of watching reruns of “Heroes”.

Below I’ve started to outline what I perceive to be the basic means for categorizing these ideas and the related data streams: What I’m referring to as the Super-Empower Centers. I only know that it’s not complete, and would appreciate collaborating with others who were focused on similar attributes for themselves:

Super-Empower Centers (v2)

• Health, Wealth & Fitness

• Education, Knowledge & Intelligence

• Media, Information & Technology

• Politics, Social Engineering & Laws of Influence/Attraction

If you’ve seen something similar to this, I would like to know about it. I am certain I am reinventing a wheel here when one book recommendation could save me significant time and effort. But the other request I have is if anyone else has an interest in these various topics, collectively? With over 400 visitors each month, people are clearly coming to this website for something – not to mention over 1,300 followers on Twitter as well. My current strategy is to take super-empowerment topics like this and create a blog/podcast to further my understanding of the subject, while educating readers/listener at the same time. The only remaining question is if I should even bother to share my journey towards super-empowerment with others. I would like to think there is a likely community here - but I’ve been wrong before. Once.

Please reach me via facebook and Twitter if so.

-pjc