Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Linking up with Linked In

Well, the more time goes by, the better LinkedIn get’s for me.  I’ve used it now to establish two potential customer relationships, hunt for a potential hire, and to consult with several industry experts.  I’ve invited all kinds of people, and now have 66 direct connections, which makes me one of the top networkers in the system, apparently.  And, I have over 2600 people in my network, growing at about 100 per day without any further action from me. 

Now, although I have 2600 people in my network, only 20 of my 66 direct connections have invited anyone else, and less than half of those have more than 2 connections.  So, last night I sent 30 pieces of email prodding people to invite more people.  We’ll see how it goes.

So far, though, I’m pretty impressed with LinkedIn.  Wish I had thought of it!

Emergic

Darn Radio… I’ve let the news aggregator get too full.  When that happens it times out adding new news feeds.  I found Emergic this morning, and it looks very interesting.  His ideas about the memex are a good way to categorize how we organize information. 

Art Thompson

The Globe and Mail reports that native artist Art Thompson is dead of cancer at the age of 54.  While living on the west coast, we became exposed to west coast aboriginal artists, and even collected a few pieces of work.  Thompson’s work is distinct, original, and very very beautiful.  Although I met several of artists there, mostly through associating with the good folks at Douglas Reynolds Gallery, we never had the opportunity to buy any of Thompson’s work.  It was very expensive, but I regret not having acquired at least one piece, now that it’s clear there won’t be any more.

Here are a few places to see some of his work. 

• In the Microsoft Corporation art collection.  They did an exhibit on NW Coast artists a while back. 
• At the Art of Man Gallery in Victoria, they have his Pooqoobs Transformation mask.  The image doesn’t do it justice because they’ve neglected to show it open.  When opened, the interior of the mask is painted grey to look like stone, and covered in white images designed to look like petroglyphs.  This is one of my favorite masks by any artist.
• Stonington Gallery in Seattle has an excellent biography featuring some of his work. 

The media creates terrorists

Jim Miller argues that neither poverty, nor the absence of freedom are the root causes of terrorism.  Rather, it is the media.  Outlets like Al Jazeera are waging a propaganda war for the minds of arabs, turning them into suicide bombers.  I am not unsympathetic to this.  Al Jazeera’s portrayal of the war was so one-sided that the rest of the arab world was completely in shock when the American military showed up in Baghdad.

Randy’s a Dad Congratulations to you all!