I just found out about the tckid.com web site, an online community for third culture types, started about a year ago. It looks like the best online resource yet for a growing category of people who have always struggled to maintain social networks. I signed up right away.
My LBI friend Paul Johnson’s Facebook post linking to an article by Ruth E. Van Renken on all the third culture folk in Barack Obama’s emerging administration is what led me to the tckids site.
As Rafe Needleman notes in the article, sites should offer users a variety of alternatives for signing in, so a clueless Facebook user can use their Facebook sign-on, while those who care about maintaining control over their digital identity can use a self-hosted OpenID sign-on.
Sites like ours will do what they do: create content and online services, and offer users community around those services. Users’ identities are becoming untethered from the sites they use. More and more, services will be giving new visitors options for signing in to access the “registered” features of the sites.
The skies over Tokyo this morning were clear and the air cool–perfect for an early walk with Bjorn through Tama Reien to the Sengenyama view of Mt. Fuji.
Cnet’s Elsa Wenzel posts on the “Buy Nothing Day” phenomenon:
Among the latter group are Compactors, 10 San Franciscans who pledged to buy nothing new for a year, then found themselves joined by thousands around the world, and overwhelmed by media requests.
The article includes a link to the delightfully well-produced The Story of Stuff:
Stumbled across The Hacker’s Diet when browsing the WordPress plugin directory.
It treats dieting and weight control from an engineering and management standpoint
…which is quite attractive to those like myself who are inspired as much by how something works as by the results.
My good friend and colleague Hidetoshi Ozaki passed away yesterday from cancer. Since leaving Software Too he had become active in the Yokohama online media community and we were looking forward to working together again on cross-media publishing initiatives.
I’m really going to miss the Senmu. He was one of the truly good people in the industry who always had a smile and a ready laugh to brighten the day of those around him. His wake will be held at 6:00 PM Tuesday December 2nd at the Yokohama Yamate Anglican/Episcopal Church.
BBC reports on yet another Tokyo architectural landmark’s demise:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7718442.stm
Yeesh.
Good selection of Obama campaign photos:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/11/the_next_president_of_the_unit.html
I’ve joined publishing workflow software developer WoodWing as their Japan sales director. The Smart Connection Enterprise product is based on Adobe InDesign technology so I’m looking forward to working with former Adobe colleagues in addressing some long-standing Japanese publishing industry challenges.
It’s a refreshing change to be working with the energetic team at WoodWing, and it’s particularly nice being on essentially the same time zone with the Kuala Lumpur regional office.
My friend and colleage Chris Gulker was just diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Chris is a veteran of the digital media industry and has been an invaluable friend and mentor to me since I joined Adobe last November. He’s one of the “good guys” in the industry that makes it much more of a joy than a job.