“For everything there is a place but that of wonders is just a little more hidden…”

📷🇮🇹 We went for a drive to the little village of Ostuni today and unknowingly stumbled upon a Dolce & Gabbana fashion show. We didn’t stick around to watch the beautiful people be beautiful, but we saw the rich people trying to get into the town we were leaving.

📷🇮🇹 Sunday frames from Martina Franca, Puglia, Italy

Threads, compared to Mastodon and BlueSky, is the difference between an idea and a product.

When Steve Jobs saw the graphical user interface with a mouse at PARC, it was an idea. Apple made it a product.

Mastodon and Bluesky are powerful and beautiful ideologies. Threads is a good product.

Apple Photos face detection software needs a "tell me the date and location of that photo" button when asking which of your daughters it is if the photo is of an infant.

Programmed a Zapier zap to get ChatGPT to reply to my website wedding enquiries with an email and a text message in the form of our deceased cat reincarnated as AI. My AI assistant refers to me as "Joshy".

Pretty much me

Can I share a weird thing that has haunted me for over a decade now? Yoko Ono followed me on Twitter 10 years ago and I forgot to follow her back. Has it been too long?

PJ Vogt's new podcast helps me feel better about my deep desire to drink coffee mid-flight. Do you drink airline coffee?

One of my great loves in this world is the format and medium of audio storytelling. First radio, then podcasting, it's one of the most beautiful ways to tell a story.

So it's pretty cool to wish the modern medium of podcasting a 20th birthday this weekend. Thank you to @podnews for the writeup.

The girls say they’ll catch us dinner tonight. I’m googling pizzerias.

I think about the Malcolm Gladwell book ‘Talking to Strangers’ every day

We think we can easily see into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic. But the stranger is easy.

Today I’m thinking about it in context to Threads by Instagram and how the hot takes are flying about how it’s absolutely going to succeed or absolutely going to fail.

Make room for the nuanced, complex, enigmas.

My day job is to stand in between people on their wedding day and make them smile then kiss. It’s not a bad gig tbh.

Yesterday in Puglia, Italy, with Casey and Rob.

Planned by The Elopement Collective and photographed by Pearce Brennan at Masseria Grieco in Ostuni.

Cory Doctorow was on the ABC talking about enshittification and it was beautiful. Must listen audio/radio.

Advice I read recently said "Social networks: choose two" and I can't drop the feeling that it's quite sage. In the overwhelm and the overbearing influx of social media content and the greater network of services there I've almost chosen zero instead of two, which isn't any better than the fifteen or so you can choose from today.

I feel like today I live in between the rock of exposure and engagement and the hard place of privacy. I've moved so far away from Google and Meta properties to avoid the leakage of private data and my contribution to their share price, and moved toward the open web, privacy-respecting social media, and I feel really good about it - but barely anyone else in my network cares. I'm still surprised when I see intelligent friends using Twitter as if it's the kind of bar people like us would show our faces.

Seeing the launch of Instagram/Meta's new Twitter doppelganger, Threads, is encouraging this week as the project lead, Adam Mosseri is seemingly committed to open-web philosophies:

“We’re committed to building support for ActivityPub, the protocol behind Mastodon, into this app. We weren’t able to finish it for launch given a number of complications that come along with a decentralized network, but it’s coming. If you’re wondering why this matters, here’s a reason: you may one day end up leaving Threads, or, hopefully not, end up de-platformed. If that ever happens, you should be able to take your audience with you to another server. Being open can enable that.”

Being open also enables you to "choose two."

Here's how I currently "social media" (Spoiler: this is more media and less social):

Anything I want to share with the world starts here on my micro.blog, which serves a few purposes.

1. Firstly it shares my stories with my micro.blog community, and they're a great bunch of people. A good portion of them are people who - like me - backed Manton's Kickstarter for the whole idea, and the rest are people who went searching for a cool glass of water in the internet desert.
2. Secondly, my micro blogs actually post to my own blog, which is hosted by micro.blog but if I ever took issue with the service, the fee, the community, the leadership, or whatever may happen - I can very easily take my content to my own hosting. I could in fact do that today and still remain part of the micro.blog community and use the micro.blog tools. This is the power and the beauty of the open web and decentralised internet services.
3. Finally, micro.blog pushes my content out to a number of other social networks, with the number always growing. Linkedin, Twitter, Mastodon, Medium, and Bluesky, all social networks that I look active on because of micro.blog.

I've had broadcasting in my genes for twenty years so that model serves me well. I craft a story, tell the story, and it shares to a few places. Today I'll then get that story and also take it where micro.blog can't (because of lack of API), like Facebook, Instagram, and now Threads.

And on a regular day, that's where it stops. Opening those apps for anything other than broadcasting is such an overwhelming action. I've unfollowed thousands of people, but it's still too much.

But if I had to pick two today, I'd go where I get the most interaction, and that would be the Meta properties and micro.blog. Mastodon, Bluesky. T2, LinkedIn, and Twitter are all graveyards as far as community, for me at least.

I open all the apps on a daily basis and it's just so rare to feel seen or heard in there. I get more feedback and encouragement via emails from subscribers to my weekly blog email or text messages and conversations with people I love. You can actually publicly see how many people read my blog, and the odd post breaks out, but mostly it's a group of 10-15 people.

Maybe that's just the way it's supposed to be? Maybe we're not supposed to be on every single social network in existence? It's just a strange thing for me to come to terms with, the gradual decline from talking to thousands of people a day on the radio, and on stages, through to being on breakfast TV and reality TV, to just being a dad who gets 10 likes on his Facebook post and calls his wife to let her know he's going viral.

If you're interested in reading more about micro.blog and the wider open web movement, Manton Reece's book is great, or at least, will be great when he publishes it and takes it out of draft.

Long live Threads, maybe there's a chance for a second breath of Twitter-like-wind there.

The shining light in the rubbish pile that is Twitter is the @HelpfulNotes service. There is so much misinformation out there, so many people so keen to share the metaphorical train crash that is the world that they don't even care if the train crash ever happened.

🧵

Normalise back to work after a sabbatical photos

First day back at work photos

After being on sabbatical for almost seven months I’m creating a marriage ceremony today.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a break from my day job for this long, I might have fogrgotten what to do.

Any tips for a fresh wedding celebrant?

🏖️ Tuesday at Spiaggia Lido Silvana, Puglia, Italy

Happy America Day

We've been in more Airbnb's this last year than most people, about 35 so far I think. Most hosts mention either in person, or in their review, how it's unique to travel with our kids (four and two) and how we don't ask much of them, like how this host mentioned out "autonomy".

Should we be more needy? Are we too Australian? Honestly, after driving three to five hours with kids the last thing we want to do is talk to an Airbnb host lol.

Remember when we'd suffix names with 2000 to make them feel cool and modern?

2023: when everything has to mean something.

Taylor Swift touring somewhere or not touring somewhere being a political move is wild. She's not playing Brisbane in Australia because it was too much on her schedule, work-wise, she's not a robot.

If anyone’s forgotten their password recently I can pick you up a new one when this store opens later today

Italian supermarkets: two aisles worth of pasta, but no rolled oats

Sunday in Puglia

Looking for fiction book recommendations. Give me the name and why you think I'll like it.

Hey Siri, prepare an edit of the Richmond FC players singing So Long, Farewell to Elon Musk.

New month, new locale. Hello, Martina Franca, Puglia.

Is the future of TV, radio? Or the future of radio is TV? Either way, it's almost 7pm and this is what Italians are watching on TV?

The number one indicator that you're an old dad is when your cables and leads company emails "Let's Catch Up!" and "We miss you!" as if you're high school buddies.

Tonight we sojourn at the Tavignano Estate in Cingoli, Italy.

Was just driving and stopped at a red traffic light in a small Italian village and a civilian car drives up being me, looks around, and just overtakes me and runs the red light. I love Italy.

South Carolina, you go grrl

I just want to go on the record for being totally cool and not scared at all by the demonic kitten sound coming from the vineyard outside our Airbnb in Northern Italy. I am a big brave man and not scared by the feline calling out in the pitch black night.

Apple Reminders in iOS 17 is finally getting pretty useful

How Italians know whether to walk around shirtless or not

Our Italian Airbnb’s TV made me feel all nostalgic

I’m back baby!

Listening to an investor on a podcast today reminded me of how and why I do what I do. He was talking about advice that he had been given regarding his investment portfolio, and the person giving the advice said how well does that pie chart of what you’ve invested in reflect or match your interests, talents, and skills? The advice being that you should invest in what you know, invest in what you are passionate about.

So, after a solid sabbatical that has taken us through Mexico, the United States of America, and so much of Europe, I am proud to say that we’re coming back to Australia in August and I’m coming back to work as a celebrant.

It’s been a wild couple of years where I didn’t know if I’d ever want to create weddings anymore, but it turns out I just needed a few months off and some quality time with my girls.

I say all of that, to say this. There's a book, and a principle, called the proximity principle, and it's a simple principle. The idea is that the people that are around you, the people that are your community, are the people most likely to be able to help you.

So there are two things I would love some help with. Number one, when we get home we have to buy some cars, and buying a car today is terrible. If you or someone you know is selling your car, let a brother know. Secondly, we're coming back to work and my calendar is wide open. So if you know someone getting married, anywhere in the world, let them know that your mate Josh is a pretty good celebrant.

Normally I’d say I’m looking forward to catching up with you when I’m home for a beer, but it turns - and I’ve researched this extensively on myself during this sabbatical - that beers make me fat and bloated and sick.

So instead I’m looking forward to an old-fashioned or red wine when I’m home.

See you soon!

Is there an AI tool around yet to help manage customer journeys? New client comes in, and the AI can take that journey on the pre-set rails we decide on in the business. Automation, but with intelligence?