A Simple Strategy For Building A Global Network Isn't About You. Your Plan Has To Make The Network A No-Brainer For Its Users -- Not Its Builder

Which one of these is a 'simple' strategy for building a global network of people who have a range of digital abilities: a pervasive, cohesive presence with many online doors -- or one room in graveyard of the web?

Which one of these is a ‘simple’ digital strategy (true story!) of an organization that aims to build a global network from a millions-strong list of women it’s loosely associated with:

• a pervasive, cohesive presence across multiple social networking services, a community with free flow of information -- with windows into other related rooms of your peers and corridors you can go down if and when you are ready, willing, able, that is, when are you motivated and enabled to connect and pursue what appeals to you about this gathered community,
• OR, one room on a service known for not-loving its group functionality, a service littered with the skeletons of well-intentioned groups, a room that is 'easy' to open?

When you find yourself looking for a simple strategy to connect all your important people so they can finally get off an inert list of names and start to build closer ties, so you can ambiently be aware of your peers on a consistent basis, so you all can see each other and learn what everyone is up to, so you recognize your commonalities and your opportunities to collaborate, and so you can TAKE ACTION on your shared goals using the cost-effective, labor-saving, reach-amplifying online communication tools available in 2013, ask yourself this.

Simple for whom?

Is your plan simple for you, the community builder? Or is it simple for the community waiting to happen?

Doing Capitalism In The Innovation Economy With Bill Janeway & Tim O'Reilly

Happy to attend O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly's book launch event for venture capitalist Bill Janeway's Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy at the  SOMA offices of Code for America, described by GOOD magazine as "the Peace Corps for geeks." Legendary web browser engineer, entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen has described the book as "essential to anyone who wants to understand technology and how its creation will be financed for decades to come."

Code for America founder Jen Pahlka interviewed Janeway for the lunchtime networking event where I ran into Twitter acquaintance and director of Deloitte's Center for the Edge John Hagel, the author of the prescient The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion.

The white leather couches are pretty bad, too.

New Year's Evolution: Our Metamorphosis Chooses Us

We resolve to be different. Fitter. Pay off debt. Volunteer. Clean out that god-forsaken garage. Stepping into a fresh calendar year seems like a chance to try on a colorful persona, yet new year's resolutions are so often based on territory (and self-images) we already know. Instead, surprising facets of ourselves are evoked by a novel landscape and our metamorphosis chooses us. This year I took charge of my own web presence. A major undertaking requiring vision and planning -- but it didn't rate an end-of-'08 resolution. When I set down a tiny microblogging footprint with Twitter 18 months ago I didn't foresee 2009's curated-webpath to my interests and intentions.

Suddenly I was virtually attending conferences like the interactive SXSW and participating in live webchats on branding, innovation, and literature. I became a joiner and a beta-tester, signing on for a month-long experimental blogging course and volunteering for a conference-call-based life design course for expat women entrepreneurs.

I’ve become a full-feathered indie blogger, and a player in the digiventures of others: founder of the group blog to build on hybrid Expat Harem themes so many of us are living, a new media guest blogger, a location-independence blog carnival participant, administrator of a LinkedIn group for creative entrepreneurs using social media, and the curator of a year-long 2010 webcarnival to celebrate Istanbul.

Being proactive in the blogosphere is an epiphany, a 2009 reawakening of my inner student....a time to learn exactly what I need to know -- as a writer and publisher, a global citizen and cultural creative in Istanbul -- and contribute to the future of my communities.

What's your surprise metamorphosis of 2009? Who did you become this year?

[Gratitude to everyone who taught me something in 2009!]

Twitter's High Barrier To Entry Makes It Worthless For People Who Don't Figure Out How Best To Use It

On a travel and lifestyle site I described Twitter this way: Twitter has a high barrier to entry and if you don't put in the time to figure out how best to use it, it just might be worthless.

For me it's a revelation and has absolutely changed my life in the year I've been using it for mindcasting. I'm now the #3 Twitterer in Istanbul!

I've virtually attended conferences around the world, gone to business school, gotten up to speed on my industry, and find *invaluable* the opportunity to connect trending thought across a slew of fields, learning and engaging alongside the top thinkers in innovation, healing, social media, sustainability, you name it.

If you're an intellectual Twitter is fabulous.