Fighting a backlog of interesting things to comment on, dealing by quoting bits that resonated with me…

• Michael Lewkowitz, Into 2010:

  Looking back at last year, it’s clear I can’t predict what will come of the year ahead, but I am pretty sure the direction it will follow.

  Thankfully it will be a journey of many. Without that, it wouldn’t be much fun.

  Hopefully it will make the world better. Without that, it wouldn’t be worth doing.

  Certainly it will be an adventure. Without that, it wouldn’t be much of anything.

  I know the feeling…

• Grant McCracken, Recycling: adding value by adding meaning:
  

  What if objects straight from the factory seemed somehow orphaned, smaller and less interesting for the fact of their pristine condition.  If we care about recycling, we want objects to be better at absorbing and recording and reporting their histories. Of course, some objects will be incapable of telling stories: bottles and newspapers for instance. But clothing, furniture, technology, these could be storyful. And they could spared the landfill for one or more cycles of ownership by the stories they bring us.

  Resonates with the thinking about culturematics and the role of narratives in marketing, leading to…

• Joshua Glenn, Which exposition strategy adds the most value?
  

  Our experiment has answered the question of whether narrative adds measurable value to near-worthless tchotchkes with an emphatic YES. But how does narrative do so? Is every form of narrative exposition, for example, equally effective in encouraging the reader to regard a thrift-store castoff as somehow meaningful?

  Read the rest of the post for a better understanding, but of the three types of narrative – description, sequence, classification – sequence proved to the most effective form of narrative in their experiment.

• Stowe Boyd, It’s Betweenness That Matters, Not Your Eigenvalue: The Dark Matter Of Influence:
  

  The subtle, dark-matter mystery of social networks is that influence is oblique, and not easily determined by the sorts of tools we have today.

  … It is not your follower count, or who you follow, per se. But, instead, do you have short paths into other social scenes, both incoming and outgoing? That is the deep structure of being truly connected: bridging over different social scenes, acting as a conduit, a vector, a filter and amplifier for ideas good and bad, the best insights, and deadly viruses.

  via David Cushman.

• John Hagel, Reshaping Relationships through Passion:
  

  Relationships built on passion are extremely strong and often defy the incentives of traditional bond formation.

  … passion provides a pull-based foundation for community building that liberates, for those who may feel alienated or different in traditional community settings.

  In a constantly changing world of shift and flows, finding (or founding) a passion-based community may be one of the most significant factors to staying oriented, rooted, and poised to grow. 

  The dynamics of passionate relationships are powerful elements of success in an era of continuous instability. Passion trumps inhibition in the service of new connections; shared passion provides a foundation for diverse relationships; and these relationships provide both stability and inspire growth for its members.

  Read the entire post for one of the most personally meaningful things I’ve read this year so far.

  Seriously, right now.