I just read Michael Arrington’s heartfelt post at TechCrunch this morning titled “Some Things need to Change” and I’m sad that some people are getting to the point where they’ll spit in  Michael Arrington’s face if he doesn’t write about them, or threaten his life, as he mentioned in the post.

Arrington does play rough with role at TechCrunch.com, he is often very opinionated, but he provides really good content and he loved what he was doing.

Lately, his job doesn’t sound like much fun, to be totally honest, and he’s right to take a pause.  It makes me wonder if it’s better not to be famous -then to be famous enough, make enough enemies, to have people hovering around you, constantly ready to strike out, and at unpredictable moments.

But let’s bring in the Economy, lousy finances all around; this will push people off the edge; people are often on the edge, you know. Times are tough, really tough, and about to get even tougher.

Now is not the time to make enemies if you can avoid it – people are on edge – and it doesn’t take that much to tick them off – and I think that’s what Micheal Arrington found – when he was in Munich.

I’m sure he’ll have a great time in Davos – but Davos is  a walled garden – a bunch of elites and influentials – getting together to talk how private industry failed and the Governments must now rescue us all – while they have parties upon parties to go to – I’d sooner read Jeff Jarvis‘s writings about Davos than anything else – he tells it like it is in

Davos09: A crisis and failure of leadership

, and hopefully, I’ll get a chance to say hello to Jeff Jarvis at SocComm next month (going to the VIP dinner the night before would be nice, too – we’ll see).[qwidget question="65"]

Getting back to Michael Arrington’s unfortunate experience in Munich yesterday – t o some people, the stakes got so high to be noticed, that TechCrunch became a decider, but maybe, too important.  But, on the other hand, isn’t that what TechCrunch strove to be?  An influencer.

A lesson.

Better to not be so famous or infamous that people want to spit in  your face, or throw shoes at you!

I’m already seeing it – and it’s just day one of the New Year of 2009 – and I noticed that two of my readers had proposed ideas for me – one a Social Media Map (and it’s use) and another on and Engagement Metric using Comscore for Social Networks and taking in account Geolocation.

I plan to post on both – plus two other readers (virtual friends) on Facebook, read my feed there (a copy of some of it is at the bottom of this blog – but much less detail than the original feed) told me about the Brooklyn Museum‘s Social Networking group that meets on the First Saturday of each month in Brooklyn; I mused why MOMA and The Metropolitan Museum don’t have Social Networks – do not use Social Media effectively – don’t understand it, even – and came up with the fact the more traditional an organization is – the longer it’s likely to take them to get into Social Media.

Traditional organizations also include Corporations and Non-Profits that often, despite the opportunity to use Social Media – are unable to understand or live with the transparency and lack of control (need to be curated, instead) and can’t enable themselves to effectively participate in the conversation – I’ve seen this a lot in 2008 but there’s signs of life in 2009 as Corporations become more and more desperate – they’re at a point when they realize they must reinvent themselves – and some of them will move onto Social Media – while others won’t, and will slowly die out, I suspect.

That musing will also lead into another post on Artnewyorkcity.com about why Museums don’t use Social Networking more – again – a collaboration that could not happen if I tried to come up with these ideas by myself.

And it also got me to think about Government and Change.org – the Obama Presidency and Administration will be one market by Collaboration on every level – just the opposite of the failures we’ve had in the last 8 years.

I do want to say one more thing – NAFTA and the goals of the 1990′s to spread the wealth to other nations did, to some extent work – and Clinton’s goals – while they weren’t always working for the benefit of everyone in this country – did effect International Trade in a overall, good way.

What really took this country down, United States, that is, wasn’t NAFTA – it was all the mostly, Chinese money that came into this country for investment, fueled by Real Estate and Low Interest Rates – at that time, had America had leadership that built up infrastructure, improved education, improved energy independence – we’d have been able to compete more effectively in the Global Marketplace we created by NAFTA and efforts like it (including the World Financial Organization, etc)- but instead – this country, with poor, criminal or just non-existent leadership,  wasted all it’s resources on two wars, and a bunch of failed initiatives – and there was no collaboration – no exchange – just scandal after scandal.

I think we have an opportunity to change a lot of that starting with this year, 2009, a year where Real Collaboration started – because the tools for it are in place, and the Network Effects coming out of that will hopefully create a prosperity to balance off the trade deficits and debt we accumulated.

And now, I need to go paint something, even if for a little bit of time.