It was a cold January day four years ago when this blog was born. Warren Zevon (gone only four months) was on my mind when I added "My Dirty Life & Times" after my own name and conceived this space as a place to share what was on my mind, regardless of anyone else's interest. As it turns out, there was a fair amount of interest - in politics, media, baseball, music, and general observations of a verbose middle-aged guy from New York - and many of you have shared the ride. My view then, confirmed since, was that life holds many twists and turns, that most of what we see and think and pretend to know is written in shades of gray. I give you my version. You knock it down (or agree, or add some detail), and we have a conversation.
This community has been very important to me over those four years, but I'm taking a bit of a break - and it's for a good reason.
I've signed to write a book that's due to my publisher later this spring. The book is called CauseWired, and it explores the collision of media technology with social, charitable, and political causes. My experiences here will figure prominently in the book, which will identify the major trends in wired social causes and seek to draw some key conclusions. So who'll want to read it? I'm hoping it will appeal to a wide group of people in business, in the nonprofit world, in politics, and even in the general reading public.
I hope the timing is good. The business pages are filled with stories of start-up companies and massive valuations. Google grows ever more rapidly into a global powerhouse. And the reach of social networks like Facebook stretches every day. Americans are living more of their lives in public, creating vast lists of online “friends” and professional colleagues, sharing their experiences, their taste in music, their political choices, and even their personal lives.
No trend is hotter than the rush to create social networks, the vast intertwined next generation of the web that promises real-time connection and communication. Americans of all ages are taking part, but no group is more enthusiastic – and more empowered – than the so-called “millennials,” that demographic slice of our society that has never known life without the Internet. These young men and women now entering the workforce for the first time have lived much of their lives online, and they bring with them in their introduction to the national economy – and our society – great expectations for lightning-fast communications, openness and transparency, and the ability to change the landscape quickly.
At the same time, the world is a smaller place. Genocide in remote villages in the east African nation of Darfur is covered by Google maps that show the devastation and religious cleansing, while hundreds of bloggers write about the terrible story – not merely passing along links from mainstream media organizations, but urging action and placing a premium on their own opinion. On Facebook, the fastest-growing online social network in the world, hundreds of thousands of people – students, young professionals, political action committees, and even gray-haired CEOs and captains of industry – signal their support for stopping the slaughter and helping the victims by placing badges on their individual profiles. Video sharing brings the story home, and thousands of digital photographs are trade and posted on blogs and social networks. Keywords and tags allow anyone interested in the topic to explore a massive cultural document – the living expansion of the topic in public consciousness – through blog networks and search engines. Darfur becomes more than a yellowing news-clipping down in the backroom of the public library, more than a research report, more than a news story from far away. It becomes a cause. More accurately, Darfur becomes "CauseWired."
Yes, it's a term of art - and what business book these days would be complete without a blog. Some of you may have noticed that I've been very quietly blogging about this subject at CauseWired.com over the last month or so. Well, I'm going public today - the fourth anniversary of my personal blog - and I hope to see you all over there.
A note: this blog is not going dark - it will remain active, but I just won't post as often as I have been (this presidential race is confounding my attempts to beat the book deadline, I can tell you). And as I've said in each of the last three "anniversary" posts: I owe you all a hearty thanks for your time, your attention, your loyalty, and your vicious mud-slinging.
