Pradal Serey is the Cambodian national sport and a branch of kickboxing (like Muay Thai).

Rattatan is a poor 29 year old Khmer fighter and started training at 26 to raise money and start his own barber shop.

As a natural athlete with cool demeanor and wins including knock outs he has been invited to fight on Cambodia’s national TV in Phnom Phen.

From my time training at Rattatan’s Pradal Serey stable (mud\dirt pit) in the town of Battambang. I was invited to escort Rattatan for the fight.

Little did I know, I would be in his ring corner, for his last fight and watch him leave for Siem Reap with his barbers chair to start a new life.

The story\footage highlights how a brutal sport like Pradal Serey can replace despair with hope.

The video has an intro and ending but it is kind of jittery with no road maps\story to what is happening. So if you are interested in Cambodia and would like to see a few knock outs, big knees and get up close with Cambodia’s fighting culture then it is may be worth the fifteen minutes. 12mins if you skip my hair cut….

Cambodian Kickboxing Roadtrip to Fight on National Television from Cameron McGrane on Vimeo.

Knowing your customer and creating a hard to reproduce competitive advantage is one way of standing out in any business. I applied these concepts to mobile phones, watch the video to see the results.



WIDE ANGLE FLIP CAMERA

One misty cold night in downtown San Francisco a punk ran off with my phone. I chased and cornered him on the other side of the terminal. The kid half my size refused to give it back and his two girlfriends were closing in. I had the option to use force and doing so would involve a nasty scrap requiring taking out him and inevitably his girlfriends and if you know downtown girls they are ferocious.

With in a split second, I chose a witches hat (safety cone) to up the ante and provide melee cover before I had to throw down. After he repeatably refused to return my phone, I ripped out a mighty warning swing only to spin myself around in a 360 ending on my back. The punk ran away but I got my phone back after using the system against him(another story).

What has the to do with the post? My flip camera was in my bag and the lens was cracked in the fall making it useless. Providing me an excuse to attach a wide angle lens to my flip.

To make it work I purchased a magnetic wide angle lens for $30. The magnetic part means you stick a metal o-ring on the outside of the lens so the magnetized lens can be attached\dettached. I wanted it permanent and used Gorilla Grip to make it so.

The result is more of what your eye can see in the picture which I don’t think you can beat when flipping it on. The downside is you do have the lens protruding making it less pocket friendly and robust (lens can come off if dropped).

A demo…..

Skateboarding in San Luis Obispo with Wide Angle Lens Flip from Cameron McGrane on Vimeo.

While undertaking firefox intensive activities, my friend Mel was surprised how many shortcuts I was using and so was I.
Last year I was teaching excel and at that moment realised the shortcut virus had gone airborne and moved to firefox. Luckily, it was not the H1N1 strain and I am finding my new found ability variant handy.

In fact, so handy, I created a quick video on the shortcuts and how I use them to speed up following people for my twitter service FestivalAlert.

CTRL + t = New Tab

CTRL + click on link = New Tab

CTRL 1 + 9 = Select Corresponding Tab

CTRL + PGUP = Move to the Next Tab

CTRL + PGDN = Move to the Previous Tab

CTRL + W = Close Active Tab

CTRL + L = Go to Address Bar GOLD

CTRL + K = Go to Google Search GOLD

What do you think? What shortcut do you now “own” when using firefox?

UPDATE

Thanks @Nathan_scott for the OS X equivalent

Courtesy of SlopJop

Everyone is going on about this thing call Poverty.

To be honest, I don’t even know what poverty REALLY is?

In fact, I am desensitized to most messages thrown at me about poverty.

I partially blame World Vision (and main stream media) for throwing the shock card at me.

You know?

The starving bloated fly ridden African child and a fat white bearded Santa Claus looking guy telling me I should give money so I don’t have to feel bad.

Well. It worked the first time. Then what happened? I got use to it and then instead of feeling guilty, I would go to the kitchen and make a cheese and tomato sandwich.

Luckily, World Vision has fresh blood in the form of the new media cow boys\girls at “Learn About Poverty”. Who if it was not for them I would not be typing away right now!

At his moment in time. I don’t know how to relate to poverty!!

Why?

I am a Caucasian western white bread gen x with nice parents who took care of my basic necessities and then some. I had an ordinary life in an ordinary Australian town.

I never experience poverty.

Maybe if I did the “religion” thing? I would have gone on a mission to a “New World” and built a church or school and smelt, felt and tasted “Poverty” first hand.

Then I would KNOW what POVERTY really IS.

My Dad could have been in the Army and we would travel to places of “Poverty”. I would make a friend on the other side of the fence and he would take me to the slums and I would get to see and hear “Poverty” through my eyes and ears first hand.

Then I would KNOW what POVERTY really IS.

Am I the only one desensitized to poverty?

Sure, I can get worked up on the 15th October, write a blog entry, loan more money on KIVA.

But the following day, I will be doing my own thing and it won’t be related to reducing poverty.

What if I was not atheist? I could break out of this ensuing numbness by having GOD tell me it was my mission to complete these steps after the 15th October.

It seems to work because World Vision is faith based and am fairly confident blog action day is faith driven based on the last video in the link above. And look at the awareness they are creating!

But unfortunately, I am atheist with a bit of Hari Krishna and Buddhist and some home cooked spirituality. All of which do nothing to embed a sub conscious agenda to convert less fortunate people to my belief system. In other words I don’t have a compelling reason to go out and help.

If I did maybe I would KNOW what POVERTY is?

I know! Could poverty be like ACNE?

Once you get it, it is nearly impossible to shake for years.

You can pretend not to have it but when you look in the mirror it is hard to ignore.

You can conceal it using make up but that makes it even worse.

You can try and fix it by using pimple cream which works in the short term but comes back with vengeance when you stop.

Ultimately, when you have acne you have NO CHOICE. You either have it or you don’t.

So I guess it is the same for POVERTY. When you are experiencing it.

You have NO CHOICE, NO CHOICE on anything to do with your future. You probably have less choice then options to reduce your ACNE.

O.K I now have an idea of what is poverty.

Next question. If I am desensitized towards pro-active advertisements and churchies, I mean anti-poverty advertisements. What am actually sensitive towards?

I guess, I am sensitive to the flesh, the personality, the life energy of people, the understanding, the interaction, the play.
Thinks like the smile you give another when something unspoken happens that you simultaneously find amusing.
The moments of shared understanding between you and a stranger that instantly makes you realize we are human and one of the the same.
The times sitting around listening to the stories of people with diverse backgrounds to you and being able to relate it your own life experience.

These types of experiences motivate me to make life better for others. And if I can help directly, in person, with two hands even better.

Wow! Now I have an idea of what is poverty and what I am actually sensitive too.

I can build into my life situations that give me a fighting chance to contribute to equality and giving people the choice they deserve and we take for granted.

What will this involve? It will definitely involve travel and when in Australia, going out into the community with people outside of my comfort zone. Where I will do things that sensitize me like meeting people experiencing difficulty in person, story telling, enjoying a game and having a laugh with my best attempt to be void of judgement and righteousness..

Facebook Connect is the next evolution of Facebook Platform – enabling you to integrate the power of Facebook Platform into your own site.

Facebook Connect is a cool opportunity mainly because I have social networking enabling modules that Dotnetnuke (Open source .net framework) site owners can install, Facebook Connect is an excellent opportunity to re-shape the existing versions.

I am sold, but before we start coding the new version I had to get my head around the new platform extension. What I found I have been trawling through the Facebook Developer Wiki and Forum to understand “Facebook Connect” to design requirements to integrate facebook with my existing application.

The documentation is good but as I am more of a visual thinker, I felt converting the documentation into flow\decision charts would add extra depth and flesh out any assumptions

Above is my first effort for friend linking using Smartdraw a kick ass product that leaves Visio weeping in a heap.

I plan to enhance the above, and create a few more including:

• pseudo-code\flow chart for the Connect.RegisterUsers
• sharing information and actions on your site with their friends on Facebook
• single login that is being thrown around Facebook employees on the forums

Creative Commons – http://www.flickr.com/photos/florian_b/44227093/

Cash going into your business\muse\micro-enterprise and NOT the library? Here are free books to keep you inspired and skilled up.

1. http://thepiratesdilemma.com/download-the-book/
   Here are four books go start your own X, Y and Z
2. http://free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf
   Question your deep seeded beliefs on copyright. Now go innovate.
3. http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf
   Our society is constructed on stories. Time to tell yours.
4. http://s3.amazonaws.com/bzzagent/The_Word_of_Mouth_Manual_Volume_II.pdf
   It may infuriate but you should be across it.

Free to some degree book resources

http://www.gutenberg.org
Huge resource of expired copyright material

http://openlibrary.org
One web page for every book ever published.

http://freebooksource.com
Chock full of advertising but plenty of material

Thanks to Dan, Fred, Dennis and Chris Brogan for contributing one way or another to these resources.

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Sport teams have strong social capital but what does it take to get two rival teams to meet under difficult logistical conditions?

Maybe changing the objective from scoring points to scoring beers?

A video at my place in Boston of two competing rugby teams.

From idea to realization to end ocurred within 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Game over and everyone is a winner………..


]]> http://growing.grassrootnetworks.com/index.php/i-retired-from-rugby/feed/ 0 http://growing.grassrootnetworks.com/index.php/generation-y/ http://growing.grassrootnetworks.com/index.php/generation-y/#comments Mon, 04 Dec 2006 20:00:00 +0000 Cama http://growing.grassrootnetworks.com/index.php/2006/12/04/generation-y/



Mel has been doing presentations to companies on Generation Y. Here is her latest video.
Notice the Aussie accents? It is shot in Melbourne, a place I may just call home one day.
If you want to find out more about Generation Y for your company or org, contact me.

]]> http://growing.grassrootnetworks.com/index.php/generation-y/feed/ 1 http://growing.grassrootnetworks.com/index.php/cabin-pressure/ http://growing.grassrootnetworks.com/index.php/cabin-pressure/#comments Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:37:00 +0000 Cama http://growing.grassrootnetworks.com/?p=31


In a time, not so long ago, while once again escaping the corporate world. I found myself at a Summer Camp in the U.S.A.
Similiar to a company, I had multiple roles, responsibilties and rewards
Waterfront Security

Wakeboard Instructor

with Benefits

and most importantly a Role Model to campers

I made lots of close friends

and the best one of all was Josh

Ohhh the good times……

years later…………

Something incredible happened……..

Josh wrote a book on the experience.

Released in June 2007

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