I’ve been playing guitar for around six years now. Since then, literally every single time I’ve ever been around my grandma (who loves Willie Nelson) and have also been holding a guitar, she’s asked, “Well when are you going to play ‘Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain’ for me?!”

So for Christmas I made this for her, and thought I’d share. I hope you dig it:

If you’d like to download it, the MP3 is here.

TreeWaxHD from klipcollective on Vimeo.

I hope you were all good this year.

”We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

“To be creative is to make something from nothing.
To make something small and harmless into something great and feared.
To be creative is to be brave.”

- Jessica Hagy, “Creative = Brave,” Age of Conversation 2

Hi. I’m working on a series of posts on ideas, and I have three questions for you:

1) How do you spark ideas?

What inspires you? What wakes you up and puts you in your most creative place? Do you have a conversation, doodle, space out, write everything down, go jogging or take a shower?

2) How do you capture ideas?

When ideas happen, how do you grab and retain them? Do you carry a notebook, write on your hand, write on a friend’s hand, leave yourself a voicemail, or use some online tool? What does your knapsack of inspiration look like?

3) How do you implement ideas?

This might be the hardest part. An idea is only a colorful vapor until you do something with it. How do you take your ideas from haze to reality?

You can either respond in the comments, or email me at hi [at] itsjustbrent [dot] com.

I can’t wait to hear from you.

…It beats the heck out of working from Starbucks.

I’m sorry but this is just mind-blowing.

(via Centripital Notion’s Final Fantasy - Owen Pallett)

Lots of months ago I - along with 237 other writers from 15 countries - contributed an essay to the book “Age of Conversation 2″. Since then, I’ve been squirming in my chair like a hyperactive five-year old waiting for it come come out. Well! This week it’s here, and is available for purchase at Lulu.com.

Here’s Lulu’s description of what we made:

This book is a daring challenge to the business community. Gone are the top-down, command and control messages that held sway through the 20th Century. In are a raft of new techniques that start with listening, responding and action that set the scene for a continuing and evolving dialog about brands, experience, business and community.

Like the first Age of Conversation, all proceeds go to Variety Children’s Charity. So when you buy, you’re also doing a good thing.

Enormous props to Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton for orchestrating this whole thing and putting up with all of our nonsense.

Here’s a list of every author you can expect to love in the latest AofC:

A Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi

B Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich

C C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson

D Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner

E Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller

F Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson

G G Kofi Annan, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming

H Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber

J J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster

K Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski

L Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux

M Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel

N Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice

O Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz

P Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman

R Rachel Steiner, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen

S Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Sreeraj Menon, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood

T Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman

U Uwe Hook

V Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau

W Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff

Y Yves Van Landeghem

Not being a money guy whatsoever, I’ve had no idea what really is going on with the market lately. I just knew…it’s bad news. Here are some links that helped me demystify our current situation (originally posted on Open Source CU):

1. The Money Meltdown – A simple, clean site that breaks down “Everything you need to know about the global money crisis of 2007-?” Check the right side-bar for daily links.
2. This American Life: Another Frightening Show About the Economy – A superb explanation of “what happened…including what regulators could’ve done to prevent this financial crisis from happening in the first place.” (Thanks to Brandon Ferguson for the recommendation.)
3. Planet Money – Daily blog and/or podcast updates on from the hosts of the above episode of This American Life.

Do you have any to add?

This week I’ll be hanging out with my buddies from Trabian at the Partnership Symposium in Indianapolis. This conference is kind of like homecoming - a collection of good friends from all over the place that I rarely get to see all concentrated in one locale.

Starting tomorrow morning (Oct 1 at 9:00am Eastern) I’ll be broadcasting sessions live over at Open Source CU, so hop on over if you’d like to check it out (or even participate).

How would I sum up last years’ Symposium? I think this picture does the trick.

BarCampBankBC happened this weekend in Vancouver, and it was an incredible event. Many many props to Tim McAlpine, William Azaroff and Gene Blishen for everything they put into it. I am constantly awstruck and humbled by the creativity, intelligence, passion and kindness of the people up here I’ve met through the credit union movement.

We were able to cover most of the event live and broadcast it on Open Source CU. I have some notes up my sleeve about the coverage side of the experience, but for now I’ll just say that it was very cool having viewers from across the North America (and the BCB Godfather, Frederic Baud, from Paris) join our conversations virtually. It added an whole new dynamic. Visit the blog and click “On Demand” in the video player to watch archived video from the sessions.

Check out blogs and photos from the event here.

A really poignant quote from the weekend came from Mr. McAlpine:

“I’m gonna chair your face.”

I still have two days left in Vancouver. It’s going to be tough to leave this place.

In another step towards omniscience, Google has added facial recognition technology to their online photo service Picasa. The new “name tagging” feature automatically groups similar faces, allowing you to tag every photo of any given person at once. Watch the video to see it in action:

This has been brewing since 2006, when Google bought facial and object-recognition technology company Neven Vision. The same technology behind name tagging has even deeper implications for Google’s ability to contextualize advertising. From a 2006 CNET article:

Neven’s technology is already being used more broadly. The company sells the technology for mobile marketing purposes in an application called iScout. For example, people can use a regular camera cell phone to take a picture of a movie billboard, and then send the image to a special database that returns a film trailer, locates a theater showing the advertised movie, or let the person buy tickets to the film.

It’s possible with object and facial recognition software that can match images with those scanned into an Internet-connected database. A match can trigger a range of possible results, including promotions, ring tones, pricing, maps and search results.

Do I mind that Google becomes more like a Big Brother that I know and love every day? Nope.