Sanibel Journal
Show notes for a podcast about Sanibel Island's rebuilding after Hurricane Ian.
26 All About Me.dium This week I visited the corporate headquarters of Me.dium in Boulder, Colorado, and spoke with Dean Steadman, left, community management director, and Tobias Peggs, business development director.  This startup is in beta, available by invitation . It adds a window to your browser that shows who else is visiting sites you might be interested in, and where you can follow them and chat online. 

I loved the high energy of their funky offices, filled with bicycles and more than 25 (to me) very young employees.  When I suggested a photo, Dean and Tobias left the conference room to don company T-shirts, a spontaneous bit of corporate enthusiasm and pride that I never saw when I worked for a natural gas utility. 

Me.dium is a potent evolutionary advance for browsing the internet.  When the Twitter buzz dies down, I can imagine an even bigger phenomenon: people realizing they don't have to browse the internet alone anymore.  If as many people cross over as Dean and Tobias and their gang hope, one day in the foreseeable future it may well be all about Me.dium.
Direct download: APC26_Me.dium.m4a
Category:Interviews -- posted at: 6:35pm EDT

25 Flying with the Twitterati OK, I admit it. I'm hooked on Twitter, the deceptively simple site that asks "What are you doing?" and gives you 140 characters to answer the question.  I can't help posting these microblog entries, and I look forward to receiving them from my friends on my Motorola Q phone, a steady stream of innocent little posts which delights me, especially when I hear from my "real-world" buddy Kes Woodward in Fairbanks.  Others on my list include Dave Winer, Cali Lewis, Kris Krug, Will Pate,  Leo LaPorte, and Stephanie Booth of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Music: "Going to the Sun"on the <a href="http://www.earthpassage.com/glacier.htm">Glacier Journey</a>
CD composed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig and Matthew Lyon&nbsp; Link <a href="http://www.earthpassage.com/glacier.htm">here</a>. Used by
permission.
Direct download: APC25_Better_than_Sex.m4a
Category:Arts & Technology -- posted at: 12:04am EDT

24 Friends and Strangers I've been thinking about how the internet is changing what we mean by "friend," and how technology such as podcasting makes it possible to reach out to strangers despite differences in geography, ethnicity and other ways by which we separate ourselves from others.  For specifics, I turned to a new friend on the excellent Me.dium site, and to a few strangers on the Boston subway's red line this morning.

Music: "Going to the Sun" on the Glacier Journey CD composed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig and Matthew Lyon  Link here. Used by permission.

Photo of a Boston subway station by Michelle Barrette of Kingston, Canada, courtesy of Flickr.
Direct download: APC24_Friends.m4a
Category:Interviews -- posted at: 10:51pm EDT

23 Mothers' Club Considers China Merle Goldman, professor emerita at Boston University and an associate at the John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian Resarch, last night addressed the Mothers' Club of Cambridge Thursday night open meeting, hosted at the Cambridge Historical Society on Brattle Street.  My mother has belonged to this club for decades, and I can see why she seldom misses its events, even in bone-chillingly cold weather like we had in Cambridge last night.  This episode contains a brief interview I did with Prof. Goldman during the reception after her talk, in which she put China's incredible economic growth in historical perspective and posed questions about whether the nation of 1.3 billion can make political changes fast enough to sustain the ongoing economic phenomenon.

Music: "Going to the Sun" on the Glacier Journey CD composed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig and Matthew Lyon  Link here. Used by permission.
Direct download: APC23_China.m4a
Category:Travel -- posted at: 3:00pm EDT

22 The Architect's Tale Blake Allison of Dingman Allison Architects in Cambridge, Mass., has begun work on our home remodeling project. After our first meeting this morning with our contractor, I asked Blake some general questions about the role of an architect. Afterward, we had a chance to admire his and his partner Nancy's work in a completed remodeling project, also in Cambridge, courtesy of Polly, who showed us through her remarkable transformation of a 110-year-old home.
     Music: "Going to the Sun" on the Glacier Journey CD composed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig and Matthew Lyon  http://www.earthpassage.com/glacier.htm . Used by permission.

Direct download: 22_Blake_Allison.m4a
Category:Interviews -- posted at: 5:49pm EDT