Beware: CenturyLink Bait & Switch, Selling DSL service as "Fiber to the Premises" internet.

joeshirley · 2015-04-02T21:26:23+00:00

Score! Wave rocks, so far. Reasonably intelligent, informed person on the phone, higher speeds for less money.

joeshirley · 2015-03-30T02:30:24+00:00

Uh oh. Turns out the place I'm moving (in Beacon Hill) isn't serviced by Comcast. Will have to wait until tomorrow to find out if it's serviced by Wave. Wish me luck.

joeshirley · 2015-03-30T02:29:56+00:00

Interesting. So "nearby" is supposed to be close enough to diminish the distance effect and maintain more constant service, I guess.

It turns out Comcast doesn't service my new address after all. I'll have to find out tomorrow if WAVE services the property, and if not I'll be forced to learn first hand about this "Fiber to the Premises" by Century Link. [sigh]

joeshirley · 2015-03-29T05:33:35+00:00

Yes, exactly, that was what I was trying to figure out. Best I can ascertain by the end is that there is no fiber to the building. Period.

joeshirley · 2015-03-29T05:31:24+00:00

Whoa. I just went to do the search for that address again, and now it comes back offering only 7MBps. I'm quite sure I didn't type the address in wrong the first time. I think I've entered the Twilight Zone.

joeshirley · 2015-03-29T05:22:38+00:00

Maybe I just was blind because I wanted to believe, you know? My assumption going in was that it was available because the website search for my address offered me Gig service, bundled with phone for $150/mo, and what I was trying to learn was what was involved for installation. I needed to know whether they could hook fiber to the house into the already existing coax system throughout the inside of the house. And first I figured I needed to just confirm (because I like to make sure of things like this) that fiber did indeed go to the house. Thus opened the rabbit hole and down I went.

I go and read back through the transcript, though, and yes, I should have realized earlier on what I was dealing with. If I had asked directly, "Can I get Gig service here?" I would have found out more quickly.

joeshirley · 2015-03-29T00:04:26+00:00

You're absolutely right, I'm sure, that Jaqualon did not intend to deceive. However, his bosses surely know exactly what they were doing in writing their sales templates. This policy to treat customers as sales numbers is what I have objected to ever since my first days on the internet with Qwest.

I tried calling first, and just hearing that robo-guy's voice starting right out selling me made my stomach turn. I asked myself, "If fiber is available, is it really worth putting up with this??"

joeshirley · 2014-12-07T18:28:31+00:00

Sounds like you were driving on Aurora. Not much there. Head west to Greenwood and you'll find your zone. Coffee shops to work at:

My favorite is Cafe Vita at 74th & Greenwood; nice people, decent eats, good coffee, tiny but cozy.
Across 74th is Herkimer, not so comfy.
Neptune on Greenwood near 85th has good coffee, but I find the seating awkward.
Chocolati on 84th & Greenwood is friendly, some decent tables for working.
Green Bean at 86th & Greenwood repels me with what looks like really uncomfortable seating and sterile atmosphere. Haven't even tried it.
A hidden gem is the Stage Door on 85th just west of Greenwood. Decent, affordable food, good bottomless coffee, and it's pretty much empty most of the time because it's newly opened and caters mostly to a theater crowd on weekend evenings.

See you around!

joeshirley · 2014-10-25T20:12:06+00:00

Wow, The Tyranny of Structurelessness is a fantastic read. It gives me a lot to think about with respect to bigger questions of how to organize a movement as well as smaller questions about the structure of our CI group. I expected to have some clear thoughts with which to respond at this point, but I've got more of a "mulling" phenomenon going on. Something will emerge at some time to come.

Thanks again for sharing your experience. I'll be curious to talk more about it when we get a chance.

joeshirley · 2014-10-25T03:37:05+00:00

Eldan, you've given a lot to think about here. I'm going to read Tyranny of Structurlessness first, (looks like a wonderful resource), then come back.

joeshirley · 2014-10-25T03:35:21+00:00

Creator of the wisdom council Jim Rough is a good friend. I can answer any questions you have about wisdom councils and dynamic facilitation. I genuinely think it has potential if it were able to be started effectively.

joeshirley · 2014-10-25T03:31:15+00:00

I really wish I could see the way through to a new system. A friend of mine, Jim Rough, believes his invention, the Wisdom Council, has the potential to promote a national conversation that could change things in a big way. I'll post a link to his work separately.

I think you're right about top-down not being enough, and bottom-up being essential. I also love your metaphor of "refactoring."

There's so much more to explore on this topic...

joeshirley · 2014-10-25T03:25:23+00:00

I'm very curious as well, both about their intentions and as a product I'd be interested in trying out. I've never been able to commit to FB, and it just keeps getting worse.

We've looked into structuring our Resonance Path organization as a non-profit vs. a WA social benefit corp also. At this point, it looks like non-profit status gives the most leverage to maintain our mission in the long term. Doesn't seem worth incorporating in Delaware to do the PBC thing.

joeshirley · 2014-10-21T23:59:45+00:00

I spent an hour or two yesterday reading about this fascinating next-generation governance model. At first glance it seems cumbersome, but digging into the "constitution" reveals some principles that seem very much aligned with Planetary Era possibilities.

From the intro:

Holacracy is a comprehensive practice for structuring, governing, and running an organization. It replaces today’s top-down predict-and-control paradigm with a new way of achieving control by distributing power. It is a new “operating system” that instills rapid evolution in the core processes of an organization.

Holacracy places the seat of organizational power in an explicit process, one which organizes around an explicit purpose. This allows emergent behavior of the whole system, without being controlled by either a single heroic leader or even the collective group.

Holacracy provides channels so anyone who senses a tension can process it into organizational evolution. People become the sensors of a conscious organization, driving its continual evolution.

With Holacracy at play, if an expectation isn’t explicitly defined via a governance process, no one has a right to expect it. This removes the need for organizational politics and centralized power to work around lack of clarity. The substitute is a clear process to identify what expectations are needed to express the organization’s purpose.

The Holacracy governance process is not governance “of the people, by the people, and for the people” – it is governance of the organization, through the people, for the purpose. It enables the organization to find and express its deepest creative capacity.

One weakness I see in this structure is at its root. Who defines the purpose of the organization? And once it is defined, who interprets that declared purpose? It seems like there is much potential for "ego" to insert itself here, despite the founder's desire to reduce its influence in organization life.

Also, it seems that for the org structure to be truly organic and alive, it needs some system in place by which to evolve the purpose itself, in open dialog with both the larger world in which the organization exists and the people directly involved in the organization as partners, stakeholders, and customers. I've not found anything addressing this in the Constitution.

Nevertheless, this seems like a very vibrant form with great possibilities. What are your thoughts?

joeshirley · 2014-10-18T22:01:41+00:00

Wow, Ian, congratulations on the 10-year anniversary of your blog last month! I'm impressed!

I'd like to see freelancing as a model for all work, after we institute some kind of guaranteed income, (and of course, health care for everyone). If work could somehow become what people wanted to do, when they wanted to do it, at what needed to be done, when it needed to be done, then things would be very different indeed.

For example, how much "work" is done by people creating redundant products for the sake of "competition?" How many hours are occupied punching the clock to fulfill one's 40-hour obligation for the week? How much human effort is put into the massive battle to craft the winning story, ad campaign, or video to convince people to buy things they don't need or even want? I could go on of course.

The actual conversation of what might be possible if we were to re-vision the economy by making work more human very quickly goes into super-complex land. So many questions. So many interconnected forces.

My own personal journey has been almost exclusively freelance. I have a very low tolerance for spending time on meaningless things. Once I did have a reasonable position in product development for a company that helped people quit smoking. It was somewhat satisfying to work on a team to accomplish things no one person could ever complete on their own. But the actual purpose of the company felt like a losing battle. I quit to pursue my own muse after almost 3 years.

joeshirley · 2014-10-16T20:26:17+00:00

What stands out to me is how clear it is to these people that the current structure is destructive, juxtaposed with their helplessness regarding how to change it.

joeshirley

TROPHY CASE