JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Soon as I followed Ted’s link last week to Nat Friedman’s pictures (scroll down) of Miguel de Icaza I couldn’t wait to see what Joey deVilla would do with them. I had to wait a few days, but Joey’s captions on these imitations of Bill Gates’ 1983 Teen Beat poses were worth it.

These hilarious photos of Miguel, made even more hilarious by the Accordion Guy’s humor and open source insight, reminded me of the blog traffic tip I learned last November.

Although I’ve never met Miguel de Icaza, Ted has gotten together with him. In fact they saw each other when Miguel was in town last week. At ApacheCon in November, when Ted saw Miguel, somehow it came up in conversation that the girls and I also blog. Ted wanted to give Miguel the urls for these two blogs, so he wrote the following post:

Miguel de Icaza: click here

Julie’s blog

The kid’s blog

I noticed a spike in my traffic that day. Even more dramatic was traffic at the girls’ blog. Usually I can count on one hand the number of visitors to their space. However, when looking at the statistics that week I saw a huge spike around the day of Ted’s post, an increase in visitors by a factor of 100:

It appears that there are more than 300 Miguel de Icazas in the world.

Either there are a multitude of Miguels (clones, certainly, all posing for those Teen Beat pics) or people’s curiousity gets the best of them, when they see something such as Miguel de Icaza: click here

I wonder whether this technique can drive traffic to sites using other names, perhaps other bloggers, celebrities, models…. Just type XXXX click here (insert link where you want traffic to go)! and discover what will happen….then thank Miguel for me. (Hmmm, wonder what I’d have to do to get Ted to do the Teen Beat poses…)

I kneel on the floor and hold the cup up to her lips. The sleeping beauty blinks, realizing I have come to help her. I brush the tresses away from her face and cradle her head with one hand. The girl drinks drop by drop. I watch the elixir disappear, hoping the amethyst liquid will work magic and free her from the feverish spell.

She’s a sick princess, my daughter. As I bring her medicine, I imagine we are living a fairy tale. She’s a sleeping beauty enchanted by a fever, and I hope to find the potion that will bring her back to life. Each night I wake her, kneeling on the carpet, offering her yet another dose of Motrin or Tylenol. Perhaps these red and purple concoctions are indeed made of jewels; their prices are costly. But I would pay anything to be able to retrieve my daughter from this place where she has been for four days, another land where she has been taken captive in body and spirit.

My poor daughter also suffers from bloody noses when her body becomes overheated. So she has been having eruptions. Yesterday I lay on the floor with her in my lap, my hand pressing on her nose. Somehow she seems nearly as long as I am, her feet beside mine. I felt like a mother ship carrying cargo and I wanted to ferry her to safety. I wish I could take her somewhere but instead I am left pinching her nostrils and praying from the bathroom floor.

Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on the spinning wheel and this girl had her finger pricked at the pediatrician’s office yesterday. She was brave, beyond herself, especially given her weakness. Thanks to her cooperation, the doctor was able to conclude that we do not have the flu, at least either of the strains in the vaccine. I am left with an arsenal of bottles, bubble gum pink Motrin, cherry Tylenol and grape Triaminic, as my weapons to fight the battle; it is an unfair war and the other side seems to be winning, flaunting its victory in her visage.

In the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty wakes when a prince kisses her. My daughter is too young for such a solution. But I will do what I can to care for her. As I show her affection, from Triaminic to tissues to popsicles, I pray somehow she will be restored and set free. Tonight she was exhausted almost to tears and so was I. I hope a Prince does come to rescue her, coming from a land faraway with his glory and might, because I am realizing how little I can do for her.

In the meantime I continue to bring her jewel-colored liquids in the middle of the night, watching the drops and wiping the drips. I wait for her healing. I wait until she can wear her jewels again.

One of the wonders of blogging happens when others take what you have written and add another layer to it, creating a richer dimension and a beautiful collaboration.

Tim Bray referred to my post Why blog about your baby?:

I think that the Long Tail is actually a tangled mess of microcommunities and subcultures and tribes and hobbies and fanatics. Julie Leung writes about the community of mommie-bloggers that the New York Times wrote up as a big deal, but it’s really a big deal as an example of the structures out there in the tail.

In the midst of dissecting the newspaper’s bias and weaving writing together from a collection of links and thoughts, I did not make the Long Tail connection. Ted likes to say we are finding our tribe through blogging, and I certainly feel I have been finding a group. I like Tim Bray’s description too: a tangled mess of microcommunities and subcultures and tribes and hobbies and fanatics. Fanatics, certainly, we are all a bit crazy, eh?

Then Mitch Ratcliffe added further insight: I think the tail is a topology, not a curve.

It’s a topology with rolling hills and valleys of influence, where erosion and time take tolls on a site’s ranking. It’s 3D, not 2D. It’s a badlands we can get lost in, especially if we rely on a badly conceived map, yet we’re at the same stage in understanding that territory as in the time of the Catalan Atlas.

Beautiful picture of the atlas as well.

So is it Tribe? Tail? Topology? A tangled mess? Unknown territory?

The attitude expressed in the New York Times Mommy (and Me) piece was one of incredulity: why would anyone blog on tiny topics for small audiences? Why bother blogging for a few readers? What is remarkable is that being a parent has inspired so much text and that so many people seem eager to read it.

It seems we are in unknown territory. But looking at Tim Bray’s description, I can say that the fun – and friends – are in the Long Tail, where we find each other. Such informal social structures have always existed, the only thing that’s new is that now they span the globe in real-time. And in that context, what they’ll grow into is anyone’s guess.

Looking at Mitch Ratcliffe’s map, I can say that the adventures of discovery are only beginning. The joy of exploration in this new space is ours together.

I’m amazed and grateful at the riches others have given me through blogging, as rich as the illustration of the Catalan Atlas; these exchanges are only examples.

I failed to mention in my previous review that the reason I read James Surowiecki’s book was the simple fact that it was lying in Ted’s office. He is the one who ordered it from the library, and now he has posted his review. Ted and I have had a few conversations about the book. Although we both agree it could have been better, especially the second half, I think he enjoyed it more than I did.

The first five chapters of the book are the strongest, where Surowiecki tries to ferret out the principles and situations in which groups of people are wise/smart/effective. After that (over half the book), I felt that he kind of lost focus on the topic. While many of the anecdotes in the rest of the book are interesting, I felt a little shortchanged by the end.

Go read the rest of his review, complete with many quotes.

My previous post on the topic has received some interesting comments. Dr. Ernie shared his definition

Relative value
is best determined
by honest collaborative inquiry
into competing alternatives

Richard left me a thorough comment: I had forgotten that The Wisdom of Crowds was his favorite book of 2004!

He wrote:

If Surowiecki were to address your examples of people parking cars or teens, he would point out how heterogeneous they are. (Car-owners. Teens. That said, your first example is a better example than the second.) Also, with regards to people driving in cars, his book sort of addresses your objection by effectively giving up on explaining why traffic patterns are so dumb. His hold chapter on the subject could have been summarized by saying “you know, traffic isn’t something that the Wisdom of Crowds theory explains very well”.

Surowiecki would also address your objection that the human need for leaders and experts is false need, that leaders have been successful in convincing us that they are better decision makers or better with facts because they possess attributes (charisma, size, etc.) that are irrelevant. Also, he would probably say that we may *want* experts and leaders, but that we *shouldn’t* want them.

Anyway, the point of the book is that there are dumb crowds and smart crowds, and that the smart crowds can not only be identified but the conditions for a smart crowd can be created.

Thanks, Richard for your critique of my critique. Your summary helps me. Since I published my post, read your comment and talked to Ted more, I have been considering why I didn’t like the book and have come to these conclusions.

1. I don’t disagree with Surowiecki’s conclusions – I agree with most of them – but I don’t think he needed to take 500 + pages (in the large print edition) to get there. The writing could have been more concise and clear… and made the same points. Richard, I like your summary of the traffic chapter; I found myself wondering what it was he was trying to say.
2. I picked up the book hoping to find some direct answers to questions in my mind regarding the way crowds, or even two strangers, can behave. I think I felt frustrated because I couldn’t find what I was looking for in the book.
3. Richard also mentioned The Tipping Point in his post on favorite books of 2004, saying that Gladwell and Surowiecki both attack conventional wisdom in an accessible way.. I read Tipping Point five years ago and I remember it. Malcolm Gladwell’s book was easier for me to understand and apply to my life. I remember how amazed I was to learn about the creation of Blue’s Clues, for example, or to try to figure out whether I was a “maven” etc. I could relate to it. I could see myself living in Gladwell’s theories.

   Surowiecki’s book leaves me wondering what to do. Most of my crowd experiences in my daily life at the moment are *dumb* ones, to use Richard’s summary term. While Surowiecki outlined what would be required to create a smart crowd, I think that it is not often possible to have all of those conditions. As I noted, I fear as a culture we are becoming less willing to listen to diversity. The Wisdom of Crowds seems more a collection of observations, or someone taking a theory and seeing how it fits or doesn’t fit here and there. What he highlights about group dynamics are true. I know from my experience. But I don’t feel I know what to do now in my daily life with what I’ve read.

Then Lucy added the comment

Sure, there are dumb crowds and smarts crowds and the conditions for smart crowds can be created. However, WILL they be created?

I think this is the key question to ask after reading The Wisdom of the Crowds.