Cislerian Themes 3
by Frank Odasz
I'd like to share an informal idea. If there will be some group photos from the June 2nd Redwoods memorial gathering, perhaps for those of us who won't be able to make it but who still would like to be represented in some way.... perhaps we could all send our individual photos and someone with a bit of photoshop expertise could add the additional photos in the background. The end result might be one pretty outstanding photo. 
There are also easier "picture wall" and "video wall" web tools out there that make it pretty easy to create sheets of thumbnail photos, near instantly from a folder of photos. www.flickr.com  www.eyefetch.com etc. Google's picasa?   The text blog msgs are still great, but the single visual impact of the many folks Steve has touched could be pretty cool as a gift to Nancy and sons?  
Also, I've used the free tool at www.flixn.com which lets anyone instantly create a free video using their webcam, and thought it might be used for those interested in creating a more personalized blog entry.
Steve's son Erik is erik.cisler on skype and Email: erik.cisler@gmail.com
Here's my original blog posting...
Cislerian Themes
May 14, 2008, the day before he passed....
By Frank Odasz
I’d like to share some thoughts on the impact Steve Cisler has made on my life, as a contribution to a book project collecting similar thoughts from others.  I’d also like to note we fully expect him to be around for a good long time, yet. But, it is always nice to be appreciated.
Steve is a librarian by nature, naturally curious and eager to learn. I remember once we were talking on the phone and didn’t know he was googling on the topic we were discussing. He began pulling relevant factoids out of thin air. I’d never experienced such a thing in the middle of a conversation. It really changed my idea of how to use an Internet connected computer for instant inquiry-based knowledge access.  
I visited Steve in his office at Apple computer when he was head of the Apple Library of Tomorrow Program. He granted a macintosh to the Big Sky Telegraph project in its final years.
Many will remember the Ties that Bind community networking conferences that Apple and the Morino  Institute hosted in San Jose and Taos, NM.  
I remember his international travels to Indigenous ICT conferences and exotic ports. He was always open to new ideas and cultures. His trek to Machu Piccu in Peru, his bicycling in Malaysia, his jaunt to Guatemala, Ecuador, on and on.
Steve has always been kind and patient, always eager to help others as a master Cybrarian – to find whatever they needed.  I think he was the most universally appreciated individual in the community networking field, and he had an insatiable capacity for friendship.
Since the mid-eighties, the BBS and pre-Internet years, we’ve kept in touch sharing ideas, projects, and visions for the future. Steve and his wife, Nancy have visited Montana a number of times, we’ve gone camping, kyacking, mountain biking and enjoy a few BBQ’s. Steve has toted an inflatable kyack to a number of exotic places, and loves to hike and travel to new places. He used to make his own wine, and enjoys growing cherries.
May 16, 2008, I just received news Steve passed on yesterday. I guess my thoughts turn toward Nancy and their two boys.  Steve had a great capacity for friendship and his openness won him a huge number of friends and admirers from all over the world.  Reflecting back on the community networking movement that he contributed so much to, I’m feeling we have too few people with Steve’s vision for leveraging the good in all of us.  
His eclectic interests as a master librarian make me think of what many of us would leave on the shelf as opportunities to learn and share in life, Steve would be the one to take the book down and open it.  
A couple days before his untimely passing we talked for an hour, it was one of those rambling conversations where neither of us were in a hurry, and we talked of little things, and big things, and how funny it is how much of a rush most of us are in, most of the time, and what of it all really matters.  The week before his boys were visiting and they sat together in the yard and talked about important things on the off chance they might miss the opportunity.
Last summer, Steve and Nancy visited, and Steve and I went kyacking on the Beaverhead river. Upon launching his boat in the swift current, he rolled into the water, very near the shore in only a few feet of water.  As I grabbed for him and his boat the rocky river bottom prevented both of us from getting a foothold so we could stand up. So there we were hanging on to each other and the boat, grateful no one was watching us as we laughed and floundered.  Dripping wet we both successfully launched our kayaks and continued down that river of life enjoying every moment.
I briefly googled "Steve Cisler" and found 11,500 articles. I then clicked google's images tab and found a page of images of Steve, though the remaining images were not of him. Clicking the google “more” and then books,  tab I found  138 books, and the blogs tab, 157 blogs….and it was from Steve I learned to appreciate how to find stuff like this.  Lots of great writing….
This makes me think about what final impact each of us will have made on the world when our time comes.  And how great an impact Steve had. 
There is the online measurable text, which could comprise volumes. 
And I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg.
And the immeasurable friendship and person-to-person impacts.
We'll miss him terribly, but hopefully we can continue the work he helped begin.  There's a lot that can be said on what Steve and the early pioneers of community networking had as a vision for the future...and what happened, and didn't happen, and still needs to come to pass.
Perhaps this dialog can begin anew?

Frank Odasz
Lone Eagle Consulting
www.lone-eagles.com
Email: frank@lone-eagles.com 
Cisler Obituary
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9356437 

Cisler memorial blog – 58 comments
http://communitynetworking2008.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/hello-world/#comments

Eulogy podcast: http://lone-eagles.com/cislermempodcast.mp3
Eulogy Text version: http://lone-eagles.com/cislermem.rtf
I briefly googled "Steve Cisler" and found 11,500 articles. I then clicked google's images tab and found a page of images of Steve, though the remaining images were not of him. Clicking the google more and then books,  tab I found  138 books, and the blogs tab, 157 blogs.and it was from Steve I learned to appreciate how to find stuff like this.  Lots of great writing. 
Steve’s  Personal Blog Archives: http://place.typepad.com/digitalcommons/
Found one video of Steve:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22Steve%20Cisler%22%20&ndsp=20&um=1&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iv