Heading out to the desert – Hope and Fear: The Future
I’m spending the day preparing for my voyage to Black Rock City – home of the Burning Man Project. This year’s theme is Hope and Fear: The Future. I’m giddy with excitement to get out there. This will be my second year participating in the event. The sketch on the left is my vision for the layout of our 26-person camp – Camp Tramp – the centerpiece of which will be four trampolines. As the Burning Man website explains, "Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to
the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks
like to someone who is blind." I was moved by my experience in the desert last year and decided somewhat recently to return with a smaller cadre of friends in 2006. We combined our group with two others to form this camp. One of the best descriptions of Burning Man that I’ve come across was written in the 2006 summer newsletter by the event’s founder, Larry Harvey. "Our annual event in the desert is meant to provide an example of what can happen in a community when social interactions cease to be mediated by a marketplace." This description leaves a lot open to imagination and that is, in fact, the essence of Burning Man. Naturally, Answers.com also has good coverage of the event. Last year, I was inspired to write "The Piss Declaration" following the event and I thought it appropriate to post it again here:
“Giving the piss back…”
While riding through dusty Black Rock City, carved out of a desert in northwestern Nevada, I spotted a cluster of couches and lounge chairs set on shag carpet beneath straw tiki umbrellas carefully positioned looking out on the horizon. I parked my $20 bicycle turned gypsy chariot and joined a couple, who were already taking in the view. “We were wondering when you’d arrive…,” they explained. I introduced myself and before I sank into the couch, Chef Daddy arrived with bicycle turned full-service bar, apologetically offering, “…sorry I’m late….remind me who had the guava juice, the bloody marry, the daiquiri?” Now, beginning to sip my juice and take in the view, Chef Daddy’s son, Todd, pedaled up with trumpet in hand, freshly returned from performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival. While Chef Daddy prepared the last of the cocktails, Todd serenaded us in sweet ballads as we shared, expressed and celebrated life together as if we were old childhood friends.
The first few days of September, I took part in a social experiment of sorts, exposed to the extreme elements of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert with only the severely insufficient things I chose to pack. The harsh desert conditions had a way of reducing us all to our core – the foundation of our animal souls – and then forced us to work together to live, survive and celebrate. Out of this organism that we built, blossomed the most radical self-expression and creativity I have ever witnessed. Stranded in the desert with 37,000 strangers, we communicated, expressed and shared our lives with each other, each growing in our own individual, but connected, way from the experience. Out in the desert, everyone shares the same challenges; the desert serves as a great equalizer, breaking down the boundaries that separate us in our daily lives. With these boundaries reduced to outlines in the sand, a door seemed to open, allowing us to share ourselves with those all around.
The most essential rule of Burning Man is the law of giving. No currency is permitted and no bartering allowed. Rather, everyone is encouraged to give and by necessity, learn how to graciously receive. With giving comes kindness, and with kindness, compassion, warmth, support and harmony. This simple principle of giving, more than any other, dramatically changed the way the community functioned and interacted. With traditional barriers down; we all became approachable, talkative and friendly. The world of possibility opened for all to enter. Personally, void of everyday distractions, I was able to feel more acutely than I have in perhaps my entire life…sadness, happiness, loneliness and intense community. Left without the luxuries to which I’ve become accustomed – reduced to worrying about the acidity of my hands and feet on a daily basis – I reached a higher level of clarity. Reduced to your foundations and stranded in the desert, the importance and power of community becomes quickly apparent.
At the beginning of each new year, the Jewish people engage in Heshbon HaNefesh – an accounting of the soul – reflecting on our good and bad deeds over the past year. On Simchat Torah, which comes after the accounting has been taken and the books closed, we celebrate receiving the bible and with it, the life that we were given and chose to receive. Sitting beneath that straw tiki umbrella in the desert, rapping with an Israeli guy from Brooklyn, we couldn’t help but notice a few parallels and the auspicious time of year. Like the traditions of Rosh Hashanah and Simchat Torah, Burning Man provides a time for each participant to reflect on his/her life and reclaim it according to their own redefined rules and parameters and then celebrate it.
This year, I’ve chosen to recast my own life by modifying the way I interact with my co-investors on this journey. My Australian friends have an expression – taking the piss – which means giving someone a hard time, often employing intense sarcasm… something that I, and many of those around me, know all too well. One of the reasons I became so familiar with this expression is that in a warm, supportive and kind environment such as Burning Man, there is no room for people taking the piss. The few times during the week when someone was taking the piss (probably me), they would inevitably receive a comment from someone in the group, “why you taking the piss out of him?” (insert thick Australian/quasi-British accent). During my week in Black Rock City, I witnessed the power of support and encouragement; what it means to add to each other’s overall experience, not take away from or discount it. Never before had I appreciated the damaging and debilitating effects of competitive bickering, unnecessary sarcasm and talking each other down. I also never before understood how warm, fuzzy and uplifted one can feel when freed from the shackles of this limiting behavior.
With the Jewish New Year around the corner and the Gregorian New Year on the horizon, I challenge myself and all of us to free ourselves from harmful jabs, sarcastic criticisms and snide remarks that do nothing to help us grow and improve as individuals. While they are often only meant in jest, I believe the underlying effects are far more severe. Instead, let’s support, encourage and help each other reach new heights and grow in directions we never thought possible. Let’s pledge to give the piss back; the piss that we’ve all taken from each other over recent years.
Accepted new job – Manager of Business Development at Answers.com
I accepted a new job this past week as Manager of Business
Development at Answers.com – NASDAQ: ANSW. Naturally, I wanted to give my attorneys time
to negotiate the agreement and report to training camp before I blogged it,
thus making it officially official 
I first met with Answers.com more than a
month ago. Apparently, I didn’t
sufficiently woo them to get the job initially. When they called me back to schedule a second series of meetings the
week before last, I took a slightly hungrier approach. Towards the end of my upbeat meeting with
Jeff Cutler, Chief Revenue Officer, I pointedly asked him, “so what do I have
to do to convince you I’m the right guy for this job?” I think this question sealed it for me. Sometimes it pays to be forthcoming and
direct.
expected, and there were times I considered shifting focus all together, but I
remained resilient and ending up at a place like Answers in this role with this
team makes it all worthwhile. At
Answers.com, we are creating the definitive reference tool on the web. We already have more than 3.3 million topics
licensed from respected sources such as Roget’s, Columbia University,
McGraw Hill, Thomson Gale, AMG, Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica in
addition to our own proprietary content. The information is cleverly presented based on relevance so a search for
Boeing
787 will first show results from Wikipedia, which is the best source for
information on the new airplane. Similarly, a search on Thomas
Jefferson will show information from Who2 and American Heritage first. Our traffic ranks us in the top 200 of all
internet properties; very impressive for a company less than two years old. Answers.com also has developed several nifty technologies
of their own, including one-click
answers, which enables a user to Alt-Click any word or phrase in any
document on the screen and pull up a call-out window providing informative
explanations and research. This is a
magnificent tool for virtually anyone who reads content on their computers and
particularly helpful for those professionals working with terms and definitions
in addition to any students or other learning-focused individuals. One-click can be downloaded here (or here for Mac
users) and I encourage everyone to do so. It’s a true value-added feature.
I’m thoroughly excited to start working with them. With company headquarters in Jerusalem, it also looks like I’ll have the
opportunity to do some work abroad. The
ability to travel to Israel for work certainly wasn’t one of the criteria used in my job search, but it’s an extra nice perk. Expect great things from
Answers.com in the near future.
Maybe the best eBay purchase ever – Double H cowboy work boots
These boots arrived this week. I’ve been stocking up on inexpensive fun gear for Burning Man, but when I unwrapped these babies, I realized they may fit into another category all together. Anyone who has purchased new boots knows that breaking them in can be a bitch – excuse my russian. These guys are broken in beautifully, but even more important, they fit my foot perfectly. They are literally molded to the shape of my foot. I wonder if the previous owner has a hairy chest too. Best of all, they cost me $20 with shipping. These boots, nicely broken in, are worth far more to me than the $180 for which they sell new. This is just another example of the power of the Internet and why eBay is my favorite second favorite technology company.
Mystery organic vegetable ID’d – Fennel!!
I subscribed to an organic grocery delivery service a few weeks ago – Urban Organic. These types of services are sprouting up all over town and they’ve received good coverage, including a recent NY Times article. This particular outfit had a booth set up during the Smith Street Fair in Cobble Hill. I was wooed by their value proposition. They source organic vegetables and fruit from farms upstate and deliver to your door every other week. I ordered a small box for $25 – the smallest of their three sizes – and added a few staples like yogurt and soy milk to my standard delivery. On paper, the concept is great, especially for a vegetarian like me. In practice, however, I’ve found myself with mystery vegetables that I wouldn’t likely purchase at the local market. Some of the recent surprises included: fennel, dandelion and kale. I have enough carrots stored up in my fridge to keep bugs bunny occupied for months. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of working with new vegetables is fun – as was evidenced by the sauteed kale dish I prepared a few weeks ago – but the quantity and frequency with which these things are delivered are unrealistic for anyone but the most experienced and frequent chef. For someone with an active work schedule who only gets to cook a few times a week, even the smallest box yields much rotten food. Then again, this scenario is still better than government paying farm subsidies to limit production, and ultimately, the money comes from the same place. At least this way, we are supporting organic farmers.
Irresponsible reporting by leading publications reveals larger anti-Israel bias
This photo was emailed to me with the following capton:
Do you see the "problem" with this picture? The last "body" in the back is getting up too early. These are the "57 dead" in Qana and the journalist goes along with it.
In case you missed this piece of news last month, Lebanese journalists initially reported that 57 people had been killed including 37 children in the Israeli bombing of Qana. This led to the Israeli government suspending air strikes for 48 hours. Human Rights Watch later reported that, in fact, 28 was the number dead, which included 16 children. Its hard to argue over numbers of dead, especially since I believe every single one of the lives lost in this conflict were killed unnecessarily. However, in the crucial war of public opinion, the Arab nations battling Israel continue to gain support, and with much assistance from foreign journalists who do not seem to care about reporting news factually. I am reminded of the NY Times photo in September 2000 of Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago, blood streaming down his face, which included a caption describing him as a Palestinian victim of Israeli abuse. The report proved to include other factual errors including the location where it was taken. The point here is that a strong anti-Israel sentiment continues to plague honest reporting around the world, particularly reports from the region of conflict. One might expect this type of biased coverage from Lebanese or Syrian sources, but from the NY Times and Washington Post….its very disappointing.
New forms of communication also come at expense
It occurred to me this week, and not for the first time, that all the new mediums of communication enabled by advancements in technology come at a certain expense. Emailing, text messaging, and IMing all provide quick and easy ways to reach people, send a message or get a quick answer to a question, and they have the potential to grossly boost workplace productivity. On the flip-side, however, as we become more comfortable communicating through these new mediums and, at the same time, more habitual in our behavior, they can easily begin to replace the phone call or lunch meeting as they require a far smaller investment of time. In my own experience, feeling as comfortable writing as I do speaking (if not moreso), I have fallen into the trap of sending an email to express myself on important matters, when a phone call or face-to-face discussion would have been more appropriate. None of the new "non-human" methods of communication can convey tone, feeling or personal affect the way a voice or facial expression can. As we embrace new technologies and all the benefits they offer, its important to remember the positive qualities of human interaction that only hearing someone’s voice or seeing their face can achieve.
Marketers getting creative, sneaky republicans stirring negative PR
Republican groups have been doing some pretty sneaky (and admittedly creative) stuff to influence the opinions of young voters in America. This isn’t surprising since it was largely their creativity and willingness to play dirty that got W elected in 2004. Ironically, it was the WSJ who uncovered this news last week in an Aug 3 article. Someone uploaded a video to YouTube entitled "Al Gore’s Penguin Army" mocking his film – "An Inconvenient Truth". The 2-min video is neither creative nor intelligent in its message – though I’m still amazed someone can get away with implying global warming is anything less than a harsh reality. What is creative is the method of distribution – uploaded to YouTube and distributed for free to millions of users, mostly in the highly sought after 14-26 demographic. The video has been viewed just under 400,000 times in the past week, so as a marketing ploy, its been pretty damn effective. Thanks to a few curious journalists, it was uncovered that the video had been uploaded from computers at DCI Group , a conservative PR and lobbying firm in DC who counts Exxon among its clients. When questioned about it, DCI would not comment.
In a related story this week, the WSJ reported that marketers are using mySpace to do social marketing by allowing users to make "friends" with movie characters, and other relevant pop culture icons. The article alluded to Ricky Bobby’s mySpace page, a fictional page made to look like one owned by Will Ferrell’s character in the new film "Talladega Nights."
The message here is simple. Marketers of all types who want to influence opinions are embracing Web2.0 technology offerings with a vengeance and taking advantage of opportunities they enable. Social networking technologies enable groups and individuals to interact with a level of ease and accessibility previously unknown. Organizations who want to communicate a message or idea can, for the first time, reach out directly to groups of their constituents. Groups that fail to embrace these new offerings will fall behind, and possibly precipitously so. Its not surprising that media and entertainment groups have been some of the earliest adopters. I am surprised, though, and impressed with conservative groups’ adoption rates. For the sake of our country, I hope Democrats heed these signs and jump on board the bus before its too late.
Sketch from Israeli soldier on front lines
My cousin, Dagan, was called up from the IDF reserves three weeks ago and is serving in the current conflict at an undisclosed location. He sent me this sketch which he drew while on the front lines last week.
Time for Joe to go!! – Joe Lieberman’s day of reckoning
Voters are lining up today in the CT Senatorial primary to decide if Ned Lamont takes Joe Lieberman’s Democratic party ticket. If Lamont wins, it will be the first time an incumbant senator loses a primary since 1980.
I think its time for Lieberman to go. Enough middle of the road politics. A Lamont win will send a strong message to future Democratic candidates that pandering to Bush and the current White House will not be tolerated. Lieberman has a respectable voting record, but he has straddled the fence on key issues over the past two years – patriot act, free trade, foreign policy, environment, gun control – and this will ultimately prove to be his undoing. Ned Lamont has taken Bush head on – condemned many of his policies including the Iraq war, and supported universal health care, the need to decrease our dependence on oil and protect our civil rights. While he obviously doesn’t have much of a voting record – Lamont’s positions are stronger than Lieberman’s and he has vowed to go after Bush. This might be enough to get him the Democratic seat. He also brings strong business saavy to Washington, which the government desperately needs.
Brigitte Gabriel speech at Duke anti-terrorism speak-out
Someone sent me the transcript of a speech given by Brigitte Gabriel at an anti-terrorism speak-out at Duke in 2004. This is particularly relevant given what’s happening in Israel today. It’s also significant to me because as an advisory board member to Duke’s Freeman Center for Jewish Life, the anti-terrorism speak-out stands in direct contrast to the Palestinian Solidarity Conference that chose Duke’s campus for their rally last year. The world is divided over the Arab-Israeli conflict and I believe unjustifiably so. The beginning of the speech is below and I link to the full transcript. Its powerful and worth a read.
"I’m proud and honored to stand here today as a Lebanese speaking for
Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. As someone who was raised
in an Arabic country, I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the Arabic world. I was raised in Lebanon where I was taught that the Jews were evil,
Israel was the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the
Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea. When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians
in1975, they started massacring the Christians city after city. I ended
up living in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17 without
electricity, eating grass to live and crawling under sniper bullets to
a spring to get water. It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon. My mother was
wounded by a Moslem shell and was taken into an Israeli hospital for
treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I
saw…." Click here for the full speech transcript.
