Cameron McGrane

Poverty is like Acne - Blog Action Day 2008

Cama — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:39:21 +0000

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..

Linking Friends Flow Chart Using Facebook Connect

Cama — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 03:02:12 +0000

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

Lessons from Porn Stars on Personal Branding

Cama — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:20:18 +0000

Disclaimer: Links could lead to x rated content.

I believe the porn industry was the first to really understand and implement the ideas of the 1997 Fast Company article by Tom Peters on personal branding.

Below are porn industry contributions to the evolution of BRAND YOU

1. Identify what you are great at and stick to it!

Do a couple of things great than many things mediocre. e.g. Porn stars who love certain acts, stick with these acts because otherwise they risk losing their core audience loyalty.
Where are your strengths? What is your favorite position?

2. Build a small team, learn, do, learn some more
Porn stars are cutting out the middle men and doing there own thang with their boyfriend as the agent\director and the nerd down the street as the web master.
What can you learn today then do yourself? What does your partner bring to the table?

3. Produce content that sucks.
Sucks them in off course and has them coming back for more with new “variety” on point No 1..

4. Treat your audience as if they are the only person in the room.
Branding was a corporate creation to mass communicate differing value. Some where along the line it stopped being personable. As a personal brand you have a competitive advantage over any corporation. To be personable. How do porn stars scale up to the corporate level while maintaining personal-ability?

Do the camera not the person you are actually doing.

4. If it feels uncomfortable do it.
Every porn star had to overcome inhibitions to perform, social taboos and in-denial parents. If it is a bit riske, out there, or damn right impossible (See DVDA) and you love it. Then maybe it is worth doing?

And most importantly…..

1. THE NAME.

All successful porn stars have memorable, easy to spell, low syllable, short, first and last name.
No one wants to twitter a @difficultname to spell and using nick names is a faux par.
Some people are lucky others not.

If you are one of the lata?

Do what I am about to do.

Use the “What is your Porn Star Name” facebook app and go straight to your local births and marriages office and change your name to it by de-poll.

We can keep looking to the porn industry for insights but I would prefer for you to learn from rock stars not porn stars so take the next step in personal branding and check out
Chris Brogan’s free personal branding book that even the porn industry can learn a thing or two from.

Get the keys to your wireless internet locations

Cama — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:00:19 +0000

CC - http://www.flickr.com/photos/blipmusic/421490954/

Sometimes you are connected to a WIFI point and don’t know the WEP key you used to connect.
After you do a search on Google you will likely be offered software that costs $49.95 to retrieve keys

The windows application below has been separated from the big bundle of security apps at http://www.aircrack-ng.org to help you instantly retrieve all the WEP keys your computer has used to connect to wireless access points.

Grab the Download

Or for the official suite of tools on AirCrack including wzcook

Be Aware Of The Book

Cama — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:54:47 +0000

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.

http://thepiratesdilemma.com/download-the-book/
Here are four books go start your own X, Y and Z
http://free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf
Question your deep seeded beliefs on copyright. Now go innovate.
http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf
Our society is constructed on stories. Time to tell yours.
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.

Reverse Cold Calling - How I get business asking to stock my product

Cama — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:25:06 +0000

Yesterday, I received this message from a retailer asking to stock a product I sell purely online.

Did it make sense? Probably not.

Why? Because the guy had never heard of my business or the products I sell but strangely enough customers kept coming in hassling him for my product.

What did this business owner do on encountering this unusual situation?

Cold called the person who had what the customers were asking for!

Ok. How can you do what I did?

Identify a “Bricks & Mortar” retailer that your online customers would visit
List the retailer (with out telling them) on your website as an exclusive dealer of your product
Sit and wait for the retailer to contact you after customers repeatably come in asking for your product which they don’t stock.

This strategies success is heightened if these three key factors exist to some degree

A great product - I have a niche product, with a robust barrier to entry, that repeatably sells online.
Time sensitive - Many people want my product NOW, not 2-3 days after ordering online. Remember B&M shops still hold it over the online world when it comes to Right Now
Geographic evidence - When customers want it NOW. They ask where I am? I ask them where they are? The more geographic specific requests for pickups the more likely this strategy will work. Alternatively, place a “pickup location” page with analytics to see who and where the people are from who click on it

Happy reverse cold calling. And be super nice to your new retailers because you will have to work harder then usual to build rapport for being a cheeky little bastard.

I stole YOUR identity

Cama — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:08:22 +0000

Well I didn’t really… If I was a bad guy, I could purchase (off the black market) your D.O.B and other juicy information like first school, pet and mother’s maiden name. Such information could be taken from your Facebook profile.
The D.O.B is the key to “tricking” accounts and because I continually see my friends displaying their D.O.B publicly on their facebook profile (available for easy pickings). I decided to pulled together this tutorial to show how easy it is to change…

A Simple Landing Page Template Download

Cama — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:56:28 +0000

Do you require a web page template to help make a landing page to sell a product?

Do you have basic understanding of:

HTML
CSS and Styles

If you answered Yes. Feel free to hack this HTML and CSS to suit your own needs.

The structure is a 1 column, elastic, header, footer and centered.

The content is a mix of:

elements from my own landing pages
comments to shape your own sales copy (see html)
Meta-data pre-rolled for SEO.

Nothing flash just good starting point to

avoid paying marketers and signing up to newsletters on how to make money by marketing to others on how to make money.

Help! A social media strategy presentation….

Cama — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:32:47 +0000

A mate from University has the hookup to an interesting mobile phone management platform and wanted to know if I had any ideas to get people on board.

To no surprise I did and created a proposal for his management team.

The presentation includes some details of a non traditional startup yourmobilecompany.com.au applying notions of web democracy, equal ownership and emergence. Which makes me a level 8 or 9 on the purest-corporatist scale

With the model and audience (corporate) in mind, I designed the presentation with the objective of educating my audience, improving awareness and providing a teaser to get me on board to flesh out deeper insights for development and a potential partnership.

There are notes included to help apply to your own circumstances but you will need to download the powerpoint to access.

| View | Upload your own

It is still pretty blue sky at the moment and I would be grateful for feedback on

where it should be bolted down?
what are the risks or potential problems?
where a similar model has been used?

8 tips to have a cheap legal working holiday in Silicon Valley

Cama — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:08:05 +0000

If you are an independent technologist\artist\media hacker\entrepreneur\etc and want to experience San Francisco and the Bay Area on the ground instead of a one week gig feeling like a tourist. Here are tips to make it happen cheap!

Travel OFF PEAK

Peak is May to August and any holidays i.e. Christmas, Thanks Giving are peak. For cheap flights and accommodation avoid these times.

Fact: San Francisco DOES get cold and foggy either side of Summer

Get a VISA (Non US Citizens)

If you are one of the 27 Countries who participate in the VISA WAIVER Program you automatically get 90 days.
There are other ways to stay longer including the E3 Visa which I have attained and will blog about another time.

Important! - 90 days includes travel to Canada and Mexico. Jetting off to Cancun for a week or two will not reset your Visa on re-entry.

Stay with locals

Accommodation will be your biggest expense. Use a travelling host site and let people stay at your house. In turn you will find it easier when you arrive in your international destination. I am a Couchsurfing.com evangelist, I cannot recommend it enough but you can check out the other services on my couchsurfing facebook app for other suggested options.

If riding couches gets too much the Element Hotel is cheap, clean, cool and centrally located. You can get Queensize bed with ensuite for $60 per night (and that is the high end!)
Get connected!

The cheapest way is to stay off plan and buy a phone that is tri-band GSM, supports PUSH (mail), MMS, browser.

I run a quad band I-mate SP5 running windows mobile 5.0. It cost me $250AU and is the stand out as the poor mans Iphone.

My recommended off plan option in the U.S is AT&Ts Go Phone which comes with data options.

The combo I use:
- 5MB Media Pack 9.95
- 200 MMS and TEXT $4.95
5MB might not seem like much, but if you keep it for e-mail, twitter, browsing (images off) then you will be surprised.

Configuring takes time and settings hard to find. Message me if you need and it will give me a reason to publish the generic AT&T settings.
Go Public Transport

PT is great in SF but starts to deteriorate as you move lower towards the valley and Palo Alto.
Either way it is by far cheapest way to get around.
Be smart and remove the guess work by installing BART’s trip planners and real time info for your Iphone, PDA and Ipod.
Drive using Zip Car

It is inevitable you will be heading to Mountain View or Palo Alto for an event and PT to these areas does not cut it.
Register for ZipCar and within a couple of days you can being picking up a car with in minutes from a convenient location to get you there.

Important: Internationals, bring a copy of your driving record from your home country to fast track approval
Get an office

If you want to feel lonely and ineffective quickly do coffee shops for 3 months. For FREE or a modest monthly fee you can have an office space along side other talented San Francisco independents. By having your own desk and location you can build a routine, get work done and meet locals just like you. My favorite place is the HatFactory but all the co-working locations are different so find one that fits you.
Hit the FREE Events

San Francisco and the Bay Area have a phenomenal amount of events all year round.
And there is no better way to find out if you are up to par, meet people, get free food and drink and learn really cool things!
I found the events, search and scheduling using upcoming excellent.

What is your tip for cheap legal working holidays? Where else in the world is an extra-ordinary place to setup shop?