Patrick C. Price

A good friend of mine recently sent me this candid camera video of a snake exhibition quoting: “one could try this out once at your place” refering to my own (non-venomous) snakes.

There’s an old saying: It’s all fun and games, until someone looses an eye. I stumbled over this short movie on YouTube, showing why you should NEVER play on the potential fear of people EVER.

WARNING: This video is not for the light hearted, but it will leave you with a very distinct learning for life.

Gee, I never really thought of it that way. But read the text…

Happy International Woman’s Day to all you women out there!

A few months ago, I had the idea, of finding and connecting with all the “Patrick Price’s” on facebook. I founded a group called the Patrick Price’s of the world.

Now I happend to come across a Movie on YouTube, called “Google Me”, which describes the case of Jim Killeen, that set out to go meet all the Jim Killeen’s out there.

I find it quite a cool movie and suggest you get your beamer out, pop some popcorn and enjoy a story of how our world is become more interconnected each day.

Just happened to stumble upon this short movie about how moments can create connections…

Letzten Samstag fand das Startup Camp 2010 in Basel statt. Auch das Startup Camp wird in Form eines Bar Camps abgehalten und ist dementsprechend eine Un-Konferenz, bei dem das Programm durch die Teilnehmer selbst vor Ort organisiert wird.

Nachdem ich in Dominiks Wunschliste genannt wurde, war für mich klar, dass ich dem BarCamp-Gedanken folgend, nicht nur teilnehmen, sondern auch etwas dazu beitragen wollte. Leider war ich am morgen verhindert und da dort die Slots für die Präsentationen vergeben werden, gab es für mich nur die Möglichkeit, dies mittels eines Tweets mitzuteilen, in der Annahme, dass diese wohl auf einer Twitterwall publiziert würden. Gesagt getan und so dauerte es nicht lange, bis mir Daniel Ebneter, einer der Mitorganisatoren, meinen Slot bestätigte.

Wie hält man eine Präsentation über ein Thema, bei dem die Wissensunterschiede der Teilnehmenden grösser nicht sein könnten. Zum einen Teilnehmer, die gerade mit einer Idee für ein neues Projekt herumspielen, zum anderen Unternehmer, die konkrete detaillierte Problemstellungen im SEO Bereich haben?  Ich entschied mich, meine Präsentation, die sonst 45 minuten dauert, in 25 durchzupeitschen, damit wir anschliessend wenigstens 20 min für konkrete Fragestellungen hatten. Die SEO-Präsentation ist übrigens auf der Idealizer Seite aufrufbar.

Fotos von: X-Foto auf Flickr

Sorry, this entry is only available in German.

Gestern auf dem Heimweg noch dem städtischen Empfanskomitee begegnet…

Yesterday was the Keith Jared concert in Zurich. I had gone with a friend, with whom I had gotten to know the “Köln concert” (listen) by Keith Jared.

Jared is an pianist who improvises most of his concerts. So there’s a lot of tone-finding and experimenting going on, while he’s playing. So it was unsure what to expect during the concert.

I realized, that other than with most concerts I’ve been to, you normally know one or two pieces of music atleast and can be looking forward for them to be played. Well, with improvisations that’s a different story.

The concert was in two segments of each approx. 40 minutes and each segment consisted of 4-5 individual improvisations. The concert was recored and will be made available as a CD. Of all the parts played, I personally only enjoyed 3.

Non-the-less, it was fun to see, how Jared stands up and silenty sings along as he plays. One could get the impression, in his head, he’s a a way larger concert and it’s just the piano background, that the people in the audience get to hear.

And I must point out, it’s a great thing, he doesn’t sing any louder, than he does. He might be the greatest piano player ever, but at the same time, he’s the worst singer ever.

Another strange thing was, that after leaving the stage for the 3rd or 4th time and returning for an encore, someone seemed to take a picture of him and he happened to see the red light of the camera and went off, as “this being the rudest thing in 61 years of playing the piano…” asking the person to appologize and calling him an asshole.

Well, Mr. Jared, although I have complete understanding, that you do not want your music show up on platforms like YouTube, etc. you might still want to change your approach to the problem.

You might want to come to an understanding, that people want to take home a photograph or a sound example to show their friends and tell them, how great the concert was. Not granting your paying audience this wish, is about as rude as vice-versa.

So why not take a more pragmatic approach by offering a deal to your audience à la: “Ok, I understand you want some pictures and maybe even video, sound, etc.” so here are the first three mintues of the concert, that you can film, take pictures of, share on you social networks, etc. and give them a “released to the public” concert opening. Then after 3 minutes, stopp, ask everyone to turn of their phones, cameras, etc, and shut up and enjoy the concert with no more interruptions at all. I’m sure it would be of way greater value to you, as it would virally spread your concert and be like a free preview to your CD. Think about it. Calling your audience “asshole” is not the finest thing to do.

Recently I was at the Museum für Gestaltung, where there’s a exposition of Michel Compte, who is one of the worlds most renouned photographers and a Swiss citizen.

Here are some of the pictures that where ehibited. If you have a chance to go there in person, you should do so. It’s really interesting.

About 14 yeras ago, I started my interest in the web. As i started hearing about something called “email” and started to realize the possibility to communicate electronically with one another. It was then, when I thought, wow, that’s exactly what I would love to be able doing with my relatives in the US.

Well, it’s taken a bit more than 14 years, and I still don’t have all the e-mail addresses I imagined, and many of the one’s I got, are no longer valid.

None-the-less, this week, I was contacted by at least 4 people through Facebook or have contacted them myself, which I had long believed to be “lost contacts”.

Sometimes you meet people in life, who you instantly feel connected to and yet, you know, although you’d really like to, you will most likely never see them again.

Until now, whenever I met someone like that, I would use one of my favorite sayings: “You always meet twice in life!” (which has already happened to me many times and also has served as inspiration to meet people again).

Today I think Facebook has killed this wonderful saying.

In our modern  world, we can connect and become friends on social networks such as Facebook, whenever and whereever  we may meet, be it yet so remote.

I guess, as of now, we will part by saying “see you around” rather than, “if chance will have it, we will meet again”.

Thanks Facebook for killing my favorite exit-line!

If we take this thought or development a bit further, we soon won’t be using text-based status-updates anymore, but will rather be using near real-time video updates or actual live streams instead.

Well, I guess I’ll see you around…