I'm just saying... I have no idea what this place will end up being about, but I have some thoughts. The first bunch of thoughts I had were around business and how maybe this could be a place where they'd be so engaged by how fricking brilliant our ideas are that folks from "out there" would join us all "in here" thereby erasing more of the boundaries between us and them.

Then the whole girlism v feminism thing blew up, and then Elaine and I get an email from a man wanting to join blog sisters and saying he's sure we don't practice reverse discrimination, to which I wrote a rather intelligent and well-thought-out reply, which I won't bore you with here. But one of the results in my urging him to participate with women online was to urge him to participate "HERE" on this blog. (He is a good guy--he wasn't just trying to bait us into an argument, although, he did waste an hour of my billable time I had to make up later.)

While Blog Sisters is a place for women, open to comments, pointers, and even our sharing emails (with their permission) from men on that blog, posting privileges belong to the women building that place as their own, our own. I never meant it to be the only place on the web. It's just one little place. There are lots of other places.

Like here, for instance. Where we're humans first.

Not men or women first. Not black or white or variations thereof first. Not stay-at-home mothers or childless-by-choice first. Not liberals or republicans first.Not lawyers or doctors or homeless guys first. Yes, as this place grows the folks here may be any or all of those things, but FIRST we're just a group of human beings talking to each other and the world in one place. That's all really.

If we come at Humans First this way--regardless of what we're tackling, saying, ranting about, etc.--then I don't think we can go wrong.

Am I making a lick of sense here?  ¶ 10:08 PM

  Essence vs Accidents In college, as part of a course in comparative religion, I remember a discussion of the Catholic belief that during the Mass, the wafer is transformed into the body of Christ. The professor explained that the belief is really that the "accidents" of the wafer remained the same (the color, texture, taste etc. -- which always made me gag, btw) but its "essence," its essential nature, didn't.

As an aside, that's the difference between feminism and girlism. Feminism says focus on the essence (admirable human qualities) of a person rather than the accidents (looks, weight, religion, race etc.).

It's the essence, not the accidents, of all of us that should be why we are respected, admired, employed, served, loved. Maybe we need to start a new human movement called "essentialists."

This thinking was triggered by a post on Blog Sisters by Brooke Biggs, who works for Anita Roddick who founded The Body Shop and who recently went "undercover" as a "fat person." Her story and comments are revealing, both for her humanity and her approach to serving her customers.  ¶ 7:32 AM

  Ignorance is combustible I'd like to go on a slightly different tack from Kevin's, though evidence of humanity in corporate spheres is always a rara avis worthy of curious attention. The thng is, I think there is a sort of growing gap between the technoids and, well, me, for example, a technically rather lame and ignorant end-user. Corporations not only fail to really know how to talk to folks like me, they also need to learn how to behave properly - i.e., within what anyone might recognize as a human ''social contract.'' The lack of manners becomes truly oppressive when the product is something like code, software, which can do stuff regardless of whether we understand it or not.

Thus, we get Microsoft, for example, auto-updating its software - adding little goodies that potentially compromise our privacy and autonomous control - and not bothering to tell us before the auto-update takes place. This is arrogant behavior - cluelessness not just in speech, but in action. The fact that networks have put us in close proximity to these giant coding machines makes it all the more necessary that some expectations of how to behave be acknowledeged by all parties. By not telling us stuff, they are keeping us in the dark. So we light a candle to see what's going on, and communicative arson occurs.

My initial rough thought: Draw up a new techno-social contract - an embracing, shared understanding of what is expected of very powerful corporations with regard to relating to very small, often technically unschooled, end-users. The geeks need our help, in part because they really can't imagine how little we know, and what our questions and concerns are. I have put something about this here - very rough. I would appreciate any comments. (Kevin, you have written so much on this subject that what I'm saying there might be redundant - if so, please point me to the relevant places.) All thoughts welcome.
  ¶ 11:32 AM

  unexpected acts of humanity I'm posting stuff about finding human voices wihtin corporations. Not sure if that was what Jeneane had in mind, but they seem to fit together and fit here better than my blog.

The goal should be to form the right kind of group, the kind Gladwell describes here   ¶ 1:41 AM

  Remind Me Fellow Humans Okay, I'm over here now. Home from the holidays. Now what the heck are we supposed to write about here? If it's about humans -- we have a bunch of those here in Boston tonight -- problem is, they're all frozen solid, it's so damned cold.   ¶ 3:30 PM