ZBLOGZ

2009-04-20T23:12:00.001-07:00

If today wasn't sizzling enough, It will probably get hotter while i gallivant for Expo74 et al... Ping me if you want to meet up this week.

2009-04-17T19:43:00.001-07:00

Driving up to mendocino with the fam.

2009-04-16T19:55:00.001-07:00

Dying of hunger but having too much fun with K-bow and K-Apps

2009-04-16T12:31:00.001-07:00

Until today I've always loved talks from TED or Tim Ferriss independently, but together? Tim's TED talk marks a record low for both :(

2009-04-16T12:27:00.001-07:00

eating breakfast while watching Tim Ferriss TED talk. http://ping.fm/nnLYB

2009-04-15T21:22:00.001-07:00

drinking history- a hand-pumped beer called 'taste of fate'

2009-04-15T21:01:00.001-07:00

drinking Reality Czek and Altenmunstfr winter doppelbock at Toronado in SF

2009-04-14T22:24:00.001-07:00

Despite believing multitasking is a myth, I'm trying to play with the new and awesome Live 8 while planning birthday events.

2009-04-09T15:29:00.001-07:00

washed out my tumblr feed with all the youtube videos I've been uploading. Oops!

2009-04-05T23:18:00.001-07:00

checked out of the hotel in Harmelen, The Netherlands, and will soon have coffee with the wolves http://ping.fm/Q9oRX

2009-03-30T06:04:00.001-07:00

A Lufthansa stewardess explained that in Germany 13 is unlucky, while in the USA it's 17 (?!) and that's why our plane lacked row 17.

2009-03-29T03:44:00.001-07:00

3:42am: packing suitcases, backing up data, ordering Kinko rush print jobs before my 10 am, 10-hr flight..

2009-03-27T22:35:00.001-07:00

Just added more social networks to my ping.fm dashboard... and happily ditched myspace!

Tumbling away from Blogger...

2009-01-02T23:08:00.000-08:00

So I have seriously not been posting to this blog as much as I had intended. I find myself too busy for the long in-depth blogs, so instead the short little snippets will have to suffice. Therefore, I'm redirecting everyone to my Tumblr page, which is much more random, but concise and representative of Yours Truly. So check it out, and feel free to drop me an email at any time.

Love,
Michalek Zapalek (as my Wujek calls me for no apparent reason)

Leaving The Nest

2008-10-02T11:01:00.001-07:00

More Web 2.0 for Writing

2008-09-04T13:39:00.001-07:00

2008-09-03T17:59:00.001-07:00

Rules To Follow When Cell Phones Drop Coverage

2008-08-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

You know when you lose your connection and both sides frantically try to call each other back and cross paths? Richard Wolpert has a new rule:

1. if you initiated the call and it drops you call the other person back.
2. if you received the call and it drops you just wait for the call back.

Pass it on.

--

Joi Ito / CC BY 3.0

15 Images You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped @ cracked.com

2008-08-25T15:55:00.001-07:00

Clicks To Inspire You

2008-08-22T15:00:00.001-07:00

What is Web 3.0?

2008-08-08T17:13:00.001-07:00

Mike Zawitkowski Composing What Comes to Mind

2008-07-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of sitting with Grace Woods in front of the ferry building for lunch, and our conversation turned into this here podcast.

Here's what she had to say:

Mike Zawitkowski shows us what a well-rounded, well-educated and well-traveled mind will come up when walking down the street. He also talks about Panama Bay Coffee’s draw for the seasoned performer. Mike’s next show is August 9th at the Nomad Cafe. Check him out at myspace.com/mikezawitkowski.

Blahs, Blogs, Info Overload

2008-07-17T17:13:00.000-07:00

I like how Tjdownes managed to deliver a nice & neat little package of justification for the world's bloggers in this here flowgram:

Txt-Controlled UFO

2008-07-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

Check out this Flowgram about a UFO that was built to be controlled via sms!

PS - if you don't feel like watching the flowgram, you're welcome to check out Wired's original article on the subject here.

Eggs + Music = Service

2008-07-12T15:47:00.001-07:00

Egg timer cup sold by Urban Junkies. The best thing about it? The onslaught of sales buzz phrases on the site:

"The perfect eggs beautifully presented... "
"The coolest egg timer and egg cup for every egg head!"
"...this sophisticated piece of art will impress anytime whether you like your eggs soft or hard."
"The most beautiful egg cup ever designed combined with the best egg timer on the market. A lovely present for that special someone who has everything."
"The eggcup & timer comes in a beautiful box making a perfect gift."

And for an extra £2.79 for the "Silver Giftbag, Tag, and Bow." I'm sure it's well worth it.

This morning, I read Bob Lefsetz's latest post commenting on a NY Times article about the tour industry.

In the post, Lefsetz pointed out that "...ticket sales are off 5.6%, but the shortfall was made up by a concomitant 5.9% rise in ticket prices." He goes on to conclude that the music business, especially the touring industry, is in trouble, and the only thing that can save it are new acts.

Bob, I agree with you, but while we spend time patiently developing new artists - not the one-hit wonders but the serious career acts, there's got to be things that can be done in the meantime, for the few worthwhile acts whose careers are NOW.

Last night after a crepe dinner, I found myself in Pendragon Books, flipping through the hardcover of Sway.

If you check out the preview on Sway's website, you'll read what I read last night, about how in his study of eggs and OJ, former USDA researcher Daniel Putler illuminated that "[f]or no apparent logical reason, we overreact to perceived losses."

It turns out that, when it comes to price increases, egg buyers are a sensitive bunch. If you reduce the price of eggs, consumers buy a little more. But when the price of eggs rises, they cut back their consumption by two and a half times.

If asymmetry works the same way in music as in the grocery store, then as prices continue to increase, then consumer demand will exponentially decrease.

Without reading the book, I tried to draw some more conclusions from the Sway Blog. Thanks to Matthew Weathers' blog, I learned about the Fake Restaurant experiment, and I think some lessons can be applied to bring the music consumer back to the table.

First of all, I would rather think that a major reason why the Fake Restaurant experiment worked was not just irrational behavior on the part of the consumer, but because of the customer service that they experienced. They weren't just paying $14 for the burger, but for the experience, the aesthetic, the attention, the SERVICE.

Speaking of egg-related intervals, check out the One-Minute Entrepreneur, where you'll read about LEGENDARY customer service. That's what we need - to give fans an overall experience, whether related to the performance of a major label act, or a grassroots DIY artist, that compels them to rave about it, and drag everyone they know to the next performance.

/mz

multi-layered co-evolutionary mind warps

2008-07-12T03:40:00.000-07:00

learn about surrealien's invention of Mind-warping wallpaper at the Hardware Aisle.

Breaking new ground? I love it.

From the moment my rusty shovel cuts through the wet sod, until the last time I brush the dirt from my palms and call it a day, I hope to be repeatedly slammed with the drugless experience of warping my mind - learning and unlearning the meaning of reality.

What?

Here's the sequence of events that led me to this blog:

1. I joined the Flowgram community in private beta, and made a flowgram

2. A month after I joined, photojournalist smoothdude makes a flowgram about Florent. (below)

3. Soon after, new flowgrams appear, blending the most engaging traits of the Florent flowgram with other elements to create something new.

4. Meanwhile, I digest Josh Porter's thoughts I read about co-evolving.

My first impression of Josh's blog was that co-evolving occurred between Man and Machine, and they leapfrog each other toward that beautifully frightening singularity Ray Kurzweil writes about.

But then I thought about the evolution of Flowgram, and realized that not only is the technology evolving people, and people in turn evolving the technology, but that distinct groups of people and ideas are evolving other people thanks to sharing their exploration of the same technology.

For those of you that read the last paragraph and thought, "Mike, that's old news! Teacher teaches a student, only to have the student become the teacher." But think about it this way: If teenagers were allowed unlimited playtime with gadgets they've never seen in an applied physics lab, what could they produce and share with resident physicists that would make them say "Eureka!" It's a gross analogy, but what child doesn't dream of making an impact in the "adult" world before they're even adults?

Ok, so here's some thoughts I take for granted, followed by a question:

I was once told that we all have the same number of marbles, they're just distributed in different ratios.
The slightest common thread (flowgram) can unite disparate groups.
One party can enlighten another party, for the benefit of one or both (or more?).
Although it differentiates the young (playful teenagers) from the old (resident physicists), experience (diplomas and hard knocks) may be irrelevant in upcoming breakthroughs.

Here's my question:

If flowgram means something different to you than it means to me, and you're able to show me a unique way of looking at something, who or what benefits the most from the result?

You?
Me?
The technological product?
The technological company?
The community surrounding the product?
The community in general?
Does any of this matter?

Thoughts please,
Mike

PS - It's incredibly challenging to convey WHAT flowgram is to me. It's less time-consuming if you just DO it - watch a couple, make one for yourself, and share it with someone. And by someone, I mean ME, as I sincerely hope it furthers the warping of my mind.

Enjoy 24/7 mind-warping fun, entirely absent of electricity, technology, and social interaction, thanks to this wall ornament available at AllPosters.com

Blog Between Neuromercials

2008-07-10T22:52:00.000-07:00

It's about time I got with the blogging. Not for want of "fitting in," but because I have so many friggin' pieces of information, video, blog clippings, emails, embarrassing Facebook photos, and random mind dumps that I'm compelled to passively broadcast throughout the cosmos.

Thanks to the lovely proliferation of social networks, I now have a gazillion accounts, presenceses, and profiles (profile-eration?) on various little islands of communities floating through The Cloud that all beckon for new content and status updates to ensure that they define me and grow congruently to my person (because I am what I share, right?).

I have grown weary of experimenting with combinations of social web tools like Flock, Google Notebook, and variety of Facebok apps - as well as their associated toolbar bookmarklets and Firefox extensions.

Someday, very very soon, I'm confident that will join others in having an iPhone injected under my dermal layer, hard-wired to my thinking cap, and then I'll simply wish my happy thoughts into the data stream. A revolution perhaps made possible thanks to advertising revenue funds provided via Google's AdSense meets Android meets lobotomy, accruing trillions in revenue by feeding neuro-mercials into that void in my subconscious (left over from when I cut TV from my media diet)...

In the meantime, however, I look forward to ridding myself of the gazillion half-baked applications I've tried to harness to feed various accounts and newsfeeds the latest buzz about what I find funny, horrific, inspiring, and important enough to (albeit passively, said Joe) share with my closest Facebook friends. I hope that this blog serves as a first step toward simplifying the ever exploding world of zeros and ones.

1010,
Mike