On Starfish and Spiders

I just got done listening to my first self-purchased audio book, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. The narrator guy was really into everything he was saying for five solid hours and the book itself made a bunch of sweet points. It got a little annoying how often the authors would repeat themselves however. The basic point of the book is that decentralized networks can be a whole lot more potent than top-down organizations. The catch is that you can’t make money running a decentralized network or you’ll ruin it. They argue that instead, we should try to make hybrids where you retain some elements of a decentralized network that empower users but still have a structure that can rake in some cash.

While the book does a great job of offering clear and concise examples of these leaderless organizations like Alcoholic Anonymous and the Apache Indians, it doesn’t really tell you how to create them. The key missing link that the book doesn’t cover seems to be the answer to the question, “What makes the ideologies and values of some organizations so attractive and others so dull?” It seems obvious that eBay, AA, the Apaches, eMule, Craigslist, and all the other examples of organizations in the book had a special something, a system of value, that people really wanted to be a part of. If we could figure out what the common elements of these value systems while sticking to the principles of decentralization that Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom talk about in this book, maybe we could make all sorts of non-profit causes take off. Or maybe that’s just it- the cause itself has to already be inherently potent. I think it must be a combination. The cause and the platform that allows people to make it their own and want to share it with everyone they know.

Bay to Breakers 2008: Kids are Fast

Just as I was thinking I was fast, passing thousands of people for over an hour, a four-year old girl in a spotted dress came chugging along side me and schooled my ass to the finish line. This was only a few blocks after I’d struggled to pass a speedy little six-year old boy and his Dad.

Bay to Breakers 2008 was many things. After running 20 miles in the past two days (which counts the 10k in a redwood forest for Burmese cyclone victims that I ran yesterday morning, the 3 miles I ran to get to the start line, and the 4 miles of Bay to Breakers that I ran backwards after finishing), I’m going to skip the ten page essay recap and try to stick to the essentials.

Yesterday I found out two key pieces of information that sealed the deal for me deciding to actually run Bay to Breakers from start to finish this year instead of drinking it and attempting to run small portions in a stupor like last year.

1. Although somewhat hard to find on their website, the race does actually benefit a few charities. This year the charities are a lung disease organization, a children’s charity and a high school. I can’t pass up the chance to support the kids. Plus, who doesn’t want to support breathing? Even though I didn’t pay any registration and get an actual number, which would have been the way to support these charities, it gave me a little more motivation to run the entire thing knowing that the people with the numbers on their bellies were supporting children and breathing.

2. Bay to Breakers is both the longest consecutively running footrace in the world (San Franciscans have been jogging from the Bay Bridge to Ocean Beach in this race for 97 years in a row – although presumably not always with so many nudists and Britney Spears impersonators), and was the world’s highest participation footrace in 1986 (when 110,000 people dressed up as Michael Jackson and moon-walked the 7.4 miles while groping themselves). Simply put, this race isn’t just an early morning excuse to take your clothes off and do jello shots with thousands of superheroes and elderly nudists, it’s tradition.

Shark attacks and Beer

As if we didn’t have enough reasons to stop heating up mama’s dome with our smokestacks and tailpipes, today I spotted stories that link global warming to more shark attacks and less beer! Oh, the humanity! Make it stop!

Conditions are perfect

There’s nothing good on TV. Next thing you know we’re in the bathroom brushing our teeth. You know it’s business time.

I just feel like I want to share a smidge of the funniest moments of my Youtube life.

This, of course, is my straight-laced colleague, Julian Mcqueen advertising the newest energy drink, Frolf Star

And let’s top it off with my ever-talented, never-mello housemate with some feel good moped riding, plastic ball face-sucking, and hip twisting broom action put to the tune of R. Kelly’s Re-mix by his friend:

Now don’t tell me those unexpected funky beats didn’t just brighten your day?