Cool: the continuity and disconnect of who and where we are

We've got some cool stuff for the heat of midsummer. How we imagine our global viewpoint is created. New discussions highlight the continuity (or ooh, disconnect!) of the way we behave vs. our original culture.

Plus, tips on easy-breezy ways to track next week's international conference of game-changing rock star brainiacs.

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YOUR THOUGHTS

Let us know what you'd ask the expat+HAREM community.

What kind of global citizen are you? Most of us (35%) are "all the above", apparently.

Answers to our poll at the site and LinkedIn reveal that besides travel and interest in a wider world, we're global from birth (26%), plus we've been schooled abroad+lived overseas+worked in various nations (23%).

[August2010 update: "All of the above" (43%). Schooled, lived, worked abroad (21%). Travel and wider interest (15%). Born global (14%).]

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AT expat+HAREM

In the past month we've debated some ticklish topics: how risky behavior defines our world, the right time and place for flesh (it's not as clear-cut as you'd think), and a proud alternative to boo-yah culture.

Everyone wants to know more about our guest posters so we're happy to introduce a page of blogger bios...see what they look like, where they're from, where they've been and where they're headed now.

You probably noticed we've started using Disqus to integrate our comments across the web. Why's that cool? Lots of reasons for the commenter, but our favorite is what it does for the rest of us who like to follow your thinking: it creates a feed -- say, your voice at the sites you care most about -- that we all can subscribe to!

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AROUND THE WORLD & AROUND THE WEB

There's nothing bigger than next week's TEDGlobal, the international conference of ideas worth spreading, in Oxford.

This year's gathering of 700 aims to uplift. "And Now the Good News" brings together activists (like the guy who swam a *chilly* meltwater lake on Mt. Everest in a Speedo for heaven's sake), scientists, and artists (like the "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This" uberdiva Annie Lennox) to discuss their work to make this planet a better place.

There will even be a time-traveling retronaut. Dude says "if the past is a foreign country, this is your passport." See how he does it, you can too!

The potent 18-minute talks from this summer's program will be viewable eventually at TED.com but to track the happenings real-time through people on the ground, try my Twitter feed, peek at my list of 80+ Tweeting attendees, and search the conference's hashtag.

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Stay cool,

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MISS LAST MONTH?

Check out June's "Solstice reading"

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If You Follow People Who Use Twitter Well, You'll Be Wowed

My comments in A Small World (a private international travel and lifestyle community) thread about Twitter: Best practices on Twitter seem to be 1) post items of value 2) grow your network organically -- no schemes, no mass following whoever 3) engage with others and react to the material they share. (Be selective and honest about your interests.)

Use Tweetdeck or Seesmic to better organize the feeds you subscribe to, group them meaningfully, and actually build a series of networks that relate to who you are, where you are, what you do, what you want to do, where you want to go, and if you like, where you came from. I add to that all the lives and pursuits I didn't choose but I am nevertheless still interested in. We *can* live vicariously!

I hear what detractors are saying but all their points are disproven on Twitter every day.

It's not the same (or less than) a status post on a FB wall for a slew of reasons -- public search being just one of them. It's untrue you can't say anything impactful in 140 characters, but I agree it takes some getting used to. Tiny urls and succinct introductions are a way to bring substantial value to a Tweet.

If you follow people who use Twitter well, you'll be wowed. And if you use Twitter well, you'll be surprised on a regular basis at who and what it brings into your life.

BTW, I was just at TEDGlobal this week and by using Twitter I not only connected with a ton of attendees I might have missed, convening from all corners of the world, but I also got a richer view of the conference through their tweets --- including how and what they heard the speakers say on stage in real time. TED events are info-overload, and Twitter made it that much more accessible.

Reacting To Taboo: How Avoidance Can Make Us Complicit

I'm looking forward to attending TEDGlobal in Oxford especially since the 2009 conference's theme is "The Substance of Things Not Seen".  Invisibility, hiddenness, misapprehension -- all are threaded  through my own work. Consider Expat Harem's anachronistic, titillating concept. It taps into robust yet erroneous Western stereotypes about Asia Minor and the entire Muslim world: a forbidden world of cloistered women. When infused with a modern and virtual positivity -- the Expat Harem as peer-filled refuge and natural source of foreign female wisdom  -- a masked reality emerges: the harem as a female powerbase. This is an Eastern feminist continuum little known in the Western world.

"Help people talk about what they're most afraid of," is a mantra I've been hearing a lot from thoughtful personalities in my life. But first we have to surmount our own resistance to the topics.

I'm discovering with my latest book project, a forensic memoir of friendship, that taboo has an unintended cloaking effect. Societal taboos may be meant to protect us from harmful practices yet banishing from our thoughts the most unimaginable and unspeakable human acts only makes us blind to them happening in our midst.

By finding it so unthinkable, we make possible for taboo behavior to continue in our communities.

Name a taboo from your life.  When you hear it mentioned, what’s your reaction?