Too much to see and do - where do you start?

Robert Scoble is like Dave Winer - he's feeling overwhelmed. Not him personally, but he is clear that most of us are. He rightly asserts that there are too many ideas and companies now and many of them will not achieve critical mass - not because they're not great, but because there isn't enough attention spectrum left.

I think one way to avoid this overload is to stop aiming products at our own sandbox and start aiming them towards mums and dads, executives, knowledge workers, cafe owners and others who don't care about myspace, or social bookmarking or making youtube videos.

Another way is to just let the information flow over you. Stop trying to hold onto it.

As I have written previously to Dave Winer and about Constant Pile Reduction Mode it's important to remember news was never supposed to be read like email. No one went through their newspaper and marked off each and every article. They browse and they get what they can about their world before going off to live their real lives.

With this in mind, publishers need to start offering tools to their users that are designed with this reality in mind.

I am reminded by a great quote from the movie "American Beauty"

"it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment..."

Great movie - I suggest you rent it!

Everywhere Messaging - Twitter and others

I just started a Twitter Account.

Why? Read Chris Heuer's post about Everywhere Messaging - it describes my thoughts and experiences perfectly.

Add me as a friend if you like (oh my that sounds so myspace).

Can you say... BlackBerry?

My great friend Marjolein of CleverClogs tipped me to this piece from the Wall Street Journal:

As hand-held email devices proliferate, they are having an unexpected impact on family dynamics: Parents and their children are swapping roles. Like a bunch of
teenagers, some parents are routinely lying to their kids, sneaking around the house to covertly check their emails and disobeying house rules established to minimize compulsive typing.

It goes on to say...

Emma, 14, also identifies with adults who wish their kids spent less time playing videogames. "At my student orientation for high school, my mom was playing solitaire," she says. "She has a bad attention span." Her mother, Barbara Chang, the chief executive of a nonprofit group, says, "It's become this crutch."

Sometimes it's best just to turn your distractions off. With Touchstone, you can go into 'Away' mode and it will suppress all alerts until you get back. One of the advantages of routing all your alerts through one alert management system!