OK - I have now been to Paris twice in the last week without going to Paris. Oh, if you haven't been keeping up with the story, the family is spending the summer in France. I am traveling around different places to work with clients. We just arrived last Friday at CDG and jumped in a car to head to Le Havre, our home for three weeks (a beautiful, wonderful home). So that was my first time in Paris in the last week - and all I saw was freeway as I drove out of town. Then, on Monday, I had to head to Brussels. So I took the train from Le Havre to Paris -- which comes into St Lazar -- then took the RER E line between their and Gare du Nord (entirely underground) and jumped on the train to Brussels. Again in Paris without really being IN Paris Aargh!
But Brussels is nice...
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Monday, June 02, 2008
Brilliant move Hillary
Pundits say she has probably lost her Senate seat in NY, but she continues to have an enormously passionate audience nationwide, and in Puerto Rico where she beat nominee-in-waiting Obama 2 to 1 on Sunday. For awhile, those of us that are novices in the chess game that is power politics, have been wondering why she is still running. Why is she still at it on June 2nd? After the rules committee has already closed the door? Aha! Tomorrow in her conciliatory speech acknowledging that Obama has won the nomination she will ask for one little thing -- the VP slot. And if she does, can Obama deny her that role?
Brilliant.
Its not her first choice certainly. But battling all the way to the convention could lose the race for the Dems AND ruin her chance to run in 2012. Being VP is a heck of a lot better than ending her career. And if she and Barack can win this (and why wouldn't they?) then she is still in line for the presidency -- at least as the favored (undisputed) candidate in 2016.
Good move Hillary.
Obama-Clinton '08 ! OC08
UPDATE: Senator Feinstein begins the drumbeat for a Vice President Hillary Clinton
Brilliant.
Its not her first choice certainly. But battling all the way to the convention could lose the race for the Dems AND ruin her chance to run in 2012. Being VP is a heck of a lot better than ending her career. And if she and Barack can win this (and why wouldn't they?) then she is still in line for the presidency -- at least as the favored (undisputed) candidate in 2016.
Good move Hillary.
Obama-Clinton '08 ! OC08
UPDATE: Senator Feinstein begins the drumbeat for a Vice President Hillary Clinton
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Peter Hirshbeg
Photos are now going up on Flickr -- over 600 of them -- from our May 29th event "There's a New Conversation" -- click here -- eventually I will cull through them and make a photo album of the best. Like this one of a thoughtful Peter Hirshberg preparing his presentation.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Industrial vs. Social Production
In a recent TED Conference talk, law professor Yochai Benkler speaks on the topic "open-source economics" and makes the compelling argument that
In fact I believe that the shift that Benkler describes is also at the core of understanding the way in which business will change over the next decade.
This progress began to accelerate about 150 years ago when the steam engine began to find broad application in transportation and power generation. Mass production, mass markets, and mass media all grew up around this set of technical advances.
The challenge of the modern corporation in the twentieth century was one of coordinating large numbers of resources (people, equipment, capital) by aggregating those resources under the control of a small number of individuals who could direct those resources toward a specific end (you know, capitalism).
Along the way we had to develop hierarchical organizational structures, operational efficiencies to simplify and standardize the role of labor, eliminate differences in products to achieve economies of scale in manufacturing and distribution, and invent a marketing methodology that delivered a simple message to the largest number of people through an increasingly consolidated set of media outlets (you know, industrial production).
And we think of the world that Watt created as being "normal."
Far too many of us still believe that the industrial world is normal. In fact it was a brief episode in human evolution. It expresses some of the best and worst of what is possible in moving from tribes to global civilization. And its undoing actual began long before the Internet -- which is to say, like the 80 years that passed between Watt's patent and the real take-off point for the industrial revolution, the technology to bring about the next major economic, social, and political force has actually been at work for decades. The Internet (and the web in particular) is the tipping point -- the application of this new technology into a product that will transform instead of merely change incrementally.
In an industrial production model, coordination of resources was dependent upon people managing and overseeing the investment, labor, or other resources. But three things have changed this -- virtually free computation, data storage, and network bandwidth. Now we can put the algorithm in charge of coordinating distributed production.
How does this change things?
Each of us have a capacity to produce -- money, data, ideas, opinions, observations. That production can be quickly and easily harnessed via web applications, and then coordinated across all like producers to achieve outcomes that no one person could ever achieve.
A simple example of this is the website "FreeRice" which aggregates attention and cash and converts the two into donations of rice to the UN world hunger program. The site was created by programmer John Breen who was interested in helping his sons study for their SAT college entry exams. So he created a site that provides vocabulary challenges. In exchange for each correct definition 20 grains of rice are donated. These donations are funded by advertising (currently Unilever is promoting their partnership with the World Food Programme) .
So what is happening here? The value to someone (in this case Unilever) for a moment of your attention is worth approximately 20 grains of rice. Alone these pennies of value for your attention and my attention are difficult to do anything with. It is difficult for Unilever to find an efficient way to spend that little money at a time. It is difficult for anyone to do anything with that little. But John Breen, by creating this point of coordinated production called FreeRice, gives Unilever an efficient way to aggregate enough attention to be worth their time (and money) to spend to attract that attention. And the output of that attention, the aggregate of all those pennies for attention, is large enough to make a real difference in the world.
32 Billion grains of rice donated in the first six months.
This has a set of questions you need to ask in order to be successful. Here is just a beginning: What is the resource you wish to coordinate? What is the right way to engage the people who have that resource? How will you promote this amongst the various participants? What are the component parts that you need to build, buy, borrow? Who will partner with you to make this possible?
collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization.The heart of Benkler's argument is a distinction he makes between "industrial production" and "distributed production" and "social production." The impact of the transition that Benkler describes reaches far beyond "open source."
In fact I believe that the shift that Benkler describes is also at the core of understanding the way in which business will change over the next decade.
Soho Engineering Works
Scottish inventor James Watt filed a patent in 1769 for a steam engine. His company, Soho Engineering Works, is often cited as a landmark on the map of events that brought about the "industrial revolution."This progress began to accelerate about 150 years ago when the steam engine began to find broad application in transportation and power generation. Mass production, mass markets, and mass media all grew up around this set of technical advances.
The challenge of the modern corporation in the twentieth century was one of coordinating large numbers of resources (people, equipment, capital) by aggregating those resources under the control of a small number of individuals who could direct those resources toward a specific end (you know, capitalism).
Along the way we had to develop hierarchical organizational structures, operational efficiencies to simplify and standardize the role of labor, eliminate differences in products to achieve economies of scale in manufacturing and distribution, and invent a marketing methodology that delivered a simple message to the largest number of people through an increasingly consolidated set of media outlets (you know, industrial production).
And we think of the world that Watt created as being "normal."
How to stop worrying and learn to love the Internet
1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;With a nod to Dr. Strangelove, the late Douglas Adams penned an article for the News Review section of The Sunday Times all the way back on August 29th, 1999 entitled "How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet." Like Strangelove's bomb, Adams sees the Internet as a challenge to us on how to adapt to a world which has suddenly and forever been fundamentally changed by technology. Its funny to read, as Adams always is, but it would be funnier if we had all already understood the core message of change that the Internet brings and shown some adaptability.
2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.
Far too many of us still believe that the industrial world is normal. In fact it was a brief episode in human evolution. It expresses some of the best and worst of what is possible in moving from tribes to global civilization. And its undoing actual began long before the Internet -- which is to say, like the 80 years that passed between Watt's patent and the real take-off point for the industrial revolution, the technology to bring about the next major economic, social, and political force has actually been at work for decades. The Internet (and the web in particular) is the tipping point -- the application of this new technology into a product that will transform instead of merely change incrementally.
The Magic of Coordinating Distributed Production
But many people miss WHY the Internet is so important. They focus on how it "disintermediates" existing markets but this is a symptom not a cause. Some focus on how it "levels the playing field" making it possible for small companies to compete against large ones or individuals to have a voice -- also a symptom. The really important change is in the way in which resources are coordinated.In an industrial production model, coordination of resources was dependent upon people managing and overseeing the investment, labor, or other resources. But three things have changed this -- virtually free computation, data storage, and network bandwidth. Now we can put the algorithm in charge of coordinating distributed production.
How does this change things?
Each of us have a capacity to produce -- money, data, ideas, opinions, observations. That production can be quickly and easily harnessed via web applications, and then coordinated across all like producers to achieve outcomes that no one person could ever achieve.
A simple example of this is the website "FreeRice" which aggregates attention and cash and converts the two into donations of rice to the UN world hunger program. The site was created by programmer John Breen who was interested in helping his sons study for their SAT college entry exams. So he created a site that provides vocabulary challenges. In exchange for each correct definition 20 grains of rice are donated. These donations are funded by advertising (currently Unilever is promoting their partnership with the World Food Programme) .
So what is happening here? The value to someone (in this case Unilever) for a moment of your attention is worth approximately 20 grains of rice. Alone these pennies of value for your attention and my attention are difficult to do anything with. It is difficult for Unilever to find an efficient way to spend that little money at a time. It is difficult for anyone to do anything with that little. But John Breen, by creating this point of coordinated production called FreeRice, gives Unilever an efficient way to aggregate enough attention to be worth their time (and money) to spend to attract that attention. And the output of that attention, the aggregate of all those pennies for attention, is large enough to make a real difference in the world.
32 Billion grains of rice donated in the first six months.
What does this mean for you?
Start applying the following question to the things you want to achieve -- in your business, in your community, and in your life -- how can you use the Internet to coordinate production to more rapidly attain your objective?This has a set of questions you need to ask in order to be successful. Here is just a beginning: What is the resource you wish to coordinate? What is the right way to engage the people who have that resource? How will you promote this amongst the various participants? What are the component parts that you need to build, buy, borrow? Who will partner with you to make this possible?
How do I get started?
Watch Benkler's speech for yourself:Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Getting to London the hard way
Denver used to be an important international hub for United Airlines. After today I have the clear sense that it has become an important regional hub, but is no longer a major starting point for international flights...
I made the mistake of booking my London travel through Denver. Why? Because they could guarantee me an upgraded seat into business class (you know - lie flat across the atlantic). Since I am err.. was going straight into meetings in London, sleeping on the plane seemed key.
But first our flight was delayed out of SFO. Then there was some "microburst" activity on the ground in Denver. So I missed the connection. And the next flight to London out of Denver is 8:20 pm the next day. Thats right, one per day.
So I had to get myself out of there -- Here is the crazy routing that still gets me in on the 7th (yes, it took awhile to sort this one out). Denver to Chicago. Chicago to Washington Dulles. Dulles to London. I get in at about 10:00 pm on the 7th.
Total elapsed time - almost 24 hours. Four separate flights. The beautiful insides of SF, Denver, Chicago, Washington, and of course London terminals.
Anyone want to bet on where my luggage ends up?
I made the mistake of booking my London travel through Denver. Why? Because they could guarantee me an upgraded seat into business class (you know - lie flat across the atlantic). Since I am err.. was going straight into meetings in London, sleeping on the plane seemed key.
But first our flight was delayed out of SFO. Then there was some "microburst" activity on the ground in Denver. So I missed the connection. And the next flight to London out of Denver is 8:20 pm the next day. Thats right, one per day.
So I had to get myself out of there -- Here is the crazy routing that still gets me in on the 7th (yes, it took awhile to sort this one out). Denver to Chicago. Chicago to Washington Dulles. Dulles to London. I get in at about 10:00 pm on the 7th.
Total elapsed time - almost 24 hours. Four separate flights. The beautiful insides of SF, Denver, Chicago, Washington, and of course London terminals.
Anyone want to bet on where my luggage ends up?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
May 29th - There's A New Conversation Palo Alto
Announcing the second in the series! We are bringing our celebration of Cluetrain at 10 to Palo Alto -- Graciously hosted by SAP at their offices just off of Foothill Expressway.
We have expanded the format from the February in New York event to respond to the many requests for more networking time and more discussion time. The full day event (including cocktail reception afterwards) will now include both presentations and breakout sessions for discussion with all attendees.
This larger format is more costly to produce, and so the fee for attending the event will be $185 (continental breakfast, lunch, and cocktail reception are included). But until May 10th you can register for an "early bird" rate of just $95
More on the event:
Ten years ago, four authors came together to start a new conversation about marketing. The result was a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto and with it, Chris Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger nailed 95 Theses on the door of the Internet and challenged us all to wake up to a transformation underway in how companies and people engage in markets. Looking back over the past ten years we have learned a lot about what happens when mass markets adopt collaborative online communities and it is time to revisit this vital document that played an important role in starting a new conversation about what it means to be a marketer. What have we learned? What was right and wrong? What was left out that we should have been thinking about? What should we be thinking about for the next ten years?
* Doc Searls, co-author of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Institute
* Peter Hirshberg, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Technorati and Chairman and Partner at The Conversation Group
* Jeremiah Owyang, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
* Deborah Schultz, independent social media expert
Register for our May 29th event in Palo Alto CA at http://conversation.eventbrite.com/
We have expanded the format from the February in New York event to respond to the many requests for more networking time and more discussion time. The full day event (including cocktail reception afterwards) will now include both presentations and breakout sessions for discussion with all attendees.
This larger format is more costly to produce, and so the fee for attending the event will be $185 (continental breakfast, lunch, and cocktail reception are included). But until May 10th you can register for an "early bird" rate of just $95
More on the event:
Ten years ago, four authors came together to start a new conversation about marketing. The result was a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto and with it, Chris Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger nailed 95 Theses on the door of the Internet and challenged us all to wake up to a transformation underway in how companies and people engage in markets. Looking back over the past ten years we have learned a lot about what happens when mass markets adopt collaborative online communities and it is time to revisit this vital document that played an important role in starting a new conversation about what it means to be a marketer. What have we learned? What was right and wrong? What was left out that we should have been thinking about? What should we be thinking about for the next ten years?
* Doc Searls, co-author of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Institute
* Peter Hirshberg, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Technorati and Chairman and Partner at The Conversation Group
* Jeremiah Owyang, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
* Deborah Schultz, independent social media expert
Register for our May 29th event in Palo Alto CA at http://conversation.eventbrite.com/
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
The Social Hub at Web 2.0 Expo
The Conversation Group is producing a blogger lounge at the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco -- if you are in town, I hope you'll join the fun. Space is limited so you'll need to register at
http://blogtropolus.eventbrite.com
Here is the official information:
Blogtropol.us is the dedicated media and networking lounge for bloggers, content producers, and journalists during Web 2.0 Expo 2008. In a private suite, in the middle of the conference action, Blogtropol.us is designed for you to host and share conversations among digital influencers – both online and offline.
Open to all digital media-makers attending Web 2.0 Expo, Blogtropol.us is the exclusive venue for creating media and discussing conference happenings. Daily live streamed and on-demand video shows will be broadcast to cover the most important conversations of the conference for online discussion and sharing.
CONNECT: Free bandwidth, power, workstations and superior Internet connectivity provided
RE-CHARGE: Food, refreshments, beverages, and afternoon happy hour
RELAX: Daily yoga sessions and chair massages
FOLLOW: @blogtropolus on Twitter to keep up with all of the Blogtropol.us and Web 2 action, as it happens
Blogtropol.us is brought to you by: Snap, Mzinga, Something Simpler Systems, BottleNotes, Pandora, Socialtext, Radian6, Elephant Pharmacy, and CNET Webware.
In order to participate you must have a Web 2.0 Expo Pass or conference pass AND you must register for the lounge at - http://blogtropolus.eventbrite.com. Space is limited!
http://blogtropolus.eventbrite.com
Here is the official information:
Blogtropol.us is the dedicated media and networking lounge for bloggers, content producers, and journalists during Web 2.0 Expo 2008. In a private suite, in the middle of the conference action, Blogtropol.us is designed for you to host and share conversations among digital influencers – both online and offline.
Open to all digital media-makers attending Web 2.0 Expo, Blogtropol.us is the exclusive venue for creating media and discussing conference happenings. Daily live streamed and on-demand video shows will be broadcast to cover the most important conversations of the conference for online discussion and sharing.
CONNECT: Free bandwidth, power, workstations and superior Internet connectivity provided
RE-CHARGE: Food, refreshments, beverages, and afternoon happy hour
RELAX: Daily yoga sessions and chair massages
FOLLOW: @blogtropolus on Twitter to keep up with all of the Blogtropol.us and Web 2 action, as it happens
Blogtropol.us is brought to you by: Snap, Mzinga, Something Simpler Systems, BottleNotes, Pandora, Socialtext, Radian6, Elephant Pharmacy, and CNET Webware.
In order to participate you must have a Web 2.0 Expo Pass or conference pass AND you must register for the lounge at - http://blogtropolus.eventbrite.com. Space is limited!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Destroy the Democratic Party
This meme is really taking off. Already Google has indexed about 26,200 results for a search on
What has everyone upset? Number one is the idea that the super delegates will select the nominee, against the clear majority expression of will by the direct electorate. As one politically connected friend of mine recently said "that would tear the party apart, like the whigs being destroyed by disagreement in the mid 1800s." I don't believe he was connecting the debate of that time (over slavery) to the debate today (also with a racial component). But it was an interesting point about how deep differences of value can bring to an end institutions which have otherwise stood the test of time. While not as long-lived as the current Democratic party (there have been others), the Whig party lasted a long 23 years -- for some voters it existed during their entire lifetimes at the moment of its destruction.
In case you have been hiding under a rock, but somehow read my blog, the latest in this debate is the entry of Nancy Pelosi into the fray. Through her media representative, her position was clarified quite clearly today:
The debate about super delegates is of course a veiled debate about Clinton vs. Obama -- sort of like a war in Korea or Vietnam, its a proxy war for the bigger issue. The saddest part of this process for me is in watching the Clintons entirely deconstruct. How does it remain a rational position to say that Obama is not ready for the White House given the broad support he has received from other politicians and from the electorate? To continue this petty and self-serving argument merely reduces Hillary Clinton to the position of spoiler.
"destroy the democratic party" +obama +clinton"Google Blog Search (not always the best source...) has 118 results from this query in the last month, and only 2 more if you expand the scope of the search to "all time." 7 of these results are from the past day -- making a monthly average something over 200, so the meme may still be seeing acceleration.
What has everyone upset? Number one is the idea that the super delegates will select the nominee, against the clear majority expression of will by the direct electorate. As one politically connected friend of mine recently said "that would tear the party apart, like the whigs being destroyed by disagreement in the mid 1800s." I don't believe he was connecting the debate of that time (over slavery) to the debate today (also with a racial component). But it was an interesting point about how deep differences of value can bring to an end institutions which have otherwise stood the test of time. While not as long-lived as the current Democratic party (there have been others), the Whig party lasted a long 23 years -- for some voters it existed during their entire lifetimes at the moment of its destruction.
In case you have been hiding under a rock, but somehow read my blog, the latest in this debate is the entry of Nancy Pelosi into the fray. Through her media representative, her position was clarified quite clearly today:
"The speaker believes it would do great harm to the Democratic Party if superdelegates are perceived to overturn the will of the voters," Daly said. "This has been her position throughout this primary season, regardless of who was ahead at any particular point in delegates or votes.”This was partially in response to a set of big wheel donors who sent a letter to her stating, in part, that superdelegates "have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party’s strongest nominee."
The debate about super delegates is of course a veiled debate about Clinton vs. Obama -- sort of like a war in Korea or Vietnam, its a proxy war for the bigger issue. The saddest part of this process for me is in watching the Clintons entirely deconstruct. How does it remain a rational position to say that Obama is not ready for the White House given the broad support he has received from other politicians and from the electorate? To continue this petty and self-serving argument merely reduces Hillary Clinton to the position of spoiler.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Vertical Search = Vertical Market
"Watch Out Google, Vertical Search is Ramping Up!" shouted a September 2006 headline in Read/Write Web. According to the "experts" we were going to see a rising tide of vertical search products like Technorati, pluggd, retrevo, zoominfo, and Farecast taking market share from mass market Google. But by the beginning of 2008, Read/Write Web was instead describing Vertical Search as limited to "...the search space that Google has not yet grabbed..." So what happened?
I have been reading about the panel on vertical search at the SES conference in New York. Bill Tancer (Hitwise) points out that search is increasingly dominated by Google:
- 66% Google,
- Yahoo 21%,
- MSN 7%
- Ask 4%
- Other 2%
And Google has been doing a great job putting "vertical search" content into its search engine. And so a lot of searchers are going "from search engine to search engine."
The result of this is that many of these vertical search engines receive an enormous amount of their overall traffic from Google (their supposed enemy). These "pass-through vistors" have not learned to go to the vertical search engines, but start with Google, end up at a vertical search location for the results they want, and then move on to their destination -- never developing a relationship directly with the vertical search engine.
The really interesting unanticipated consequence? Vertical search companies are being lulled into believing that there is a mass market audience for their vertical search products. This skews expectations and business model -- making these companies think that this pass-through traffic, which represents the larger share of their page views, is also the most valuable part of their traffic.
Instead, I believe that these vertical search companies would do much better to focus on the dedicated repeat visitors -- the vertical MARKET that their vertical search capabilities appeal to, and to find ways to serve that core repeat audience and not the fickle pass through audience that comes from Google.
Once a vertical search company has focused on their core audience, there are a set of very different decisions they will make about the features and core capabilities to invest in from an engineering perspective. And a very different set of revenue opportunities to explore.
In the end, Google is going to do a great job in virtually every vertical search category for the "casual" searcher. Differentiating from Google is going to mean focusing on the needs of a particular vertical user, not just carving out one data type to index.
I have been reading about the panel on vertical search at the SES conference in New York. Bill Tancer (Hitwise) points out that search is increasingly dominated by Google:
- 66% Google,
- Yahoo 21%,
- MSN 7%
- Ask 4%
- Other 2%
And Google has been doing a great job putting "vertical search" content into its search engine. And so a lot of searchers are going "from search engine to search engine."
The result of this is that many of these vertical search engines receive an enormous amount of their overall traffic from Google (their supposed enemy). These "pass-through vistors" have not learned to go to the vertical search engines, but start with Google, end up at a vertical search location for the results they want, and then move on to their destination -- never developing a relationship directly with the vertical search engine.
The really interesting unanticipated consequence? Vertical search companies are being lulled into believing that there is a mass market audience for their vertical search products. This skews expectations and business model -- making these companies think that this pass-through traffic, which represents the larger share of their page views, is also the most valuable part of their traffic.
Instead, I believe that these vertical search companies would do much better to focus on the dedicated repeat visitors -- the vertical MARKET that their vertical search capabilities appeal to, and to find ways to serve that core repeat audience and not the fickle pass through audience that comes from Google.
Once a vertical search company has focused on their core audience, there are a set of very different decisions they will make about the features and core capabilities to invest in from an engineering perspective. And a very different set of revenue opportunities to explore.
In the end, Google is going to do a great job in virtually every vertical search category for the "casual" searcher. Differentiating from Google is going to mean focusing on the needs of a particular vertical user, not just carving out one data type to index.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Say it Aint so Joe
Publications as mainstream as Time Magazine have begun referring to Senator Joe Lieberman as a possible running mate for Republican John McCain. Is it really true? Could Joe Lieberman really be considering shacking up in the White House with the conservative agenda's best bet for holding on to the presidency? In the immortal words once spoken to Shoeless Joe Jackson, "say it aint so Joe!"
Let's get this straight. John McCain believes (from his campaign website) that
The scary possibility is that Joe Lieberman with be the nadir this year, instead of Nader -- handing center of the road voters to the conservative coalition and dooming our country to at least four more years of horribly misguided policies, further damaging our reputation in the world, and further eroding our economy.
SAY IT AINT SO JOE
Let's get this straight. John McCain believes (from his campaign website) that
"...Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned..."And let's not forget that this is the guy that goes around singing "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
"...the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman..."and that it should be "...a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes..."
The scary possibility is that Joe Lieberman with be the nadir this year, instead of Nader -- handing center of the road voters to the conservative coalition and dooming our country to at least four more years of horribly misguided policies, further damaging our reputation in the world, and further eroding our economy.
SAY IT AINT SO JOE
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
TED: Also a great conference
No the TED -- http://www.ted.com conference is not named after me, but instead stands for Technology Education and Design. For the past month I have been taking advantage of the incredible gift that TED has given all of humanity (or at least that portion that has Internet access and understands English) by making years and years of their conference talks available as podcasts.
To say that the speakers at TED are amazing wouldn't do justice to the incredible breadth of knowledge and depth of experience that these remarkable people have achieved and are able to share through engaging presentations. Must see TV for any curious person -- it almost doesn't matter which 20 minute talk you choose. They are all hidden treasure waiting to be discovered.
What I have been doing is downloading them to my iPhone and listening to a few each day during my morning run. Sometimes I have to stop and switch to the video, as the visual elements are often amazing -- but mostly I just listen. And then go on thinking about the ideas for days.
Highly recommended!
To say that the speakers at TED are amazing wouldn't do justice to the incredible breadth of knowledge and depth of experience that these remarkable people have achieved and are able to share through engaging presentations. Must see TV for any curious person -- it almost doesn't matter which 20 minute talk you choose. They are all hidden treasure waiting to be discovered.
What I have been doing is downloading them to my iPhone and listening to a few each day during my morning run. Sometimes I have to stop and switch to the video, as the visual elements are often amazing -- but mostly I just listen. And then go on thinking about the ideas for days.
Highly recommended!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Congratulations Obama (or - why isn't this over?)
Let me make a bold statement. Obama has won the Democratic nomination. With his latest wins in Mississippi and the Texas Caucasus, Obama now has (ignoring "superdelegates") 161 more delegates than Hillary Clinton. The number of delegates at stake in Pennsylvania is 188 -- so Hillary Clinton would have to win almost 100% of the vote to pull ahead of Obama. That is not going to happen. Even if Clinton has a two digit lead (and polls do show her as ahead in that state) she is unlikely to close the gap by more than 50 delegates, leaving Obama with a comfortable 100 delegate lead of Clinton going into the convention.
No wonder the Clinton camp would like to bring Florida and Michigan back into the fold. And how stupid it was of the Democratic party to try and disenfranchise these voters! But any attempt to take the results of the February primaries and apply them to the current situation will be as severe a miscarriage of our representative democratic process as if the super delegates were allowed to chose the Democratic party nominee.
There are only two options now for the DNC -- award the nomination to Obama or rerun the primaries in those two states. How terrible for our nation that we will waste $30 million on this exercise. Michigan, by the way is 156 delegates and Florida is 210. So if you combine those two with the 188 in Pennsylvania, there are a total of 554 delegates at stake. Clinton would have to win 162 more than Obama. As close as each of these races has been, do YOU think you would win that many more? Is this worth $30 million that could be used for education in our public schools?
No wonder the Clinton camp would like to bring Florida and Michigan back into the fold. And how stupid it was of the Democratic party to try and disenfranchise these voters! But any attempt to take the results of the February primaries and apply them to the current situation will be as severe a miscarriage of our representative democratic process as if the super delegates were allowed to chose the Democratic party nominee.
There are only two options now for the DNC -- award the nomination to Obama or rerun the primaries in those two states. How terrible for our nation that we will waste $30 million on this exercise. Michigan, by the way is 156 delegates and Florida is 210. So if you combine those two with the 188 in Pennsylvania, there are a total of 554 delegates at stake. Clinton would have to win 162 more than Obama. As close as each of these races has been, do YOU think you would win that many more? Is this worth $30 million that could be used for education in our public schools?
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Video from Austin (SXSW)
The team from The Conversation Group is on the ground here in Austin and filming all over the conference and all over town! Our goal is to bring you a taste of what it is like here at the SXSW interactive conference -- our partner Pure Digital provided us with the wonderful Flip video cameras and we have been putting them to good use on our new site, This is SXSW.
The lastest video, which I am just posting now, is a rundown on what happened this morning in the session on what teens want from their phones and from the Internet -- attendees couldn't get enough of these 16 and 17 year olds talking about how they are experiencing the world through all of this participatory technology. Check out Jim Hirshfield's summary --
http://blip.tv/file/727459/
The lastest video, which I am just posting now, is a rundown on what happened this morning in the session on what teens want from their phones and from the Internet -- attendees couldn't get enough of these 16 and 17 year olds talking about how they are experiencing the world through all of this participatory technology. Check out Jim Hirshfield's summary --
http://blip.tv/file/727459/
Friday, March 07, 2008
NPR, Ken Stern, and the local stations
I was going to write a short blog post about why I no longer contribute to KQED (the local bay area NPR station) and why Ken Stern is right and the board who threw him out was wrong... but then Jeff Jarvis does such a good job:
Sure, it will actually probably take 5 years until the "tipping point" -- but why should any of us be supporting radio tower infrastructure? I want to directly support the programming, not the distribution mechanism.
NPR wake up or you will just be replaced by the creative destruction of the Internet.
Well guess, what, local yokels, hate to tell you this but… You’re screwed! You bet the internet is going to hurt you.So, not today. Maybe not this year. But really soon now people in the economic bracket that traditionally has supported local public radio will all have the ability to get exactly the programming they want, when they want it, where they want it. And it will be integrated into our cars along with the traffic that is already there on the GPS.
Sure, it will actually probably take 5 years until the "tipping point" -- but why should any of us be supporting radio tower infrastructure? I want to directly support the programming, not the distribution mechanism.
NPR wake up or you will just be replaced by the creative destruction of the Internet.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Best comment of the evening (supernova)
Best comment on the evening during Jerry's discussion on Business in the Networked world for the Supernova mixer:
Advertising is transactional
commercial success is persistent
this creates a conflict
For me this offers a great insight into the potential hazard for marketing professionals -- excluding brand campaigns, a lot of advertising as a medium leads you to think about the transactional impact -- am I going to get more people to buy the product? But you can do so in a way that overlooks the long term -- persistent relationship -- aspect that ultimately determines commercial success.
I was just advising a client today on why NOT to do an email "blast" as part of his company's online marketing campaign. If you look at the activity from a purely transactional perspective you could conclude that if X number of people purchases from the email, the expense of the campaign is covered and the activity is justified.
But if you put the "blast" into the context of developing a persistent presence in a market and a set of relationships in that market, the negative long term effects of being perceived as spammer that sends unsolicited mail could have a much greater negative impact than the transactional value of those one time sales.
This certainly isn't an indictment of all transactional advertising -- but perhaps opens the door to an economic analysis that includes the persistent relationships that a company ultimately is dependent upon for its long term success.
Advertising is transactional
commercial success is persistent
this creates a conflict
For me this offers a great insight into the potential hazard for marketing professionals -- excluding brand campaigns, a lot of advertising as a medium leads you to think about the transactional impact -- am I going to get more people to buy the product? But you can do so in a way that overlooks the long term -- persistent relationship -- aspect that ultimately determines commercial success.
I was just advising a client today on why NOT to do an email "blast" as part of his company's online marketing campaign. If you look at the activity from a purely transactional perspective you could conclude that if X number of people purchases from the email, the expense of the campaign is covered and the activity is justified.
But if you put the "blast" into the context of developing a persistent presence in a market and a set of relationships in that market, the negative long term effects of being perceived as spammer that sends unsolicited mail could have a much greater negative impact than the transactional value of those one time sales.
This certainly isn't an indictment of all transactional advertising -- but perhaps opens the door to an economic analysis that includes the persistent relationships that a company ultimately is dependent upon for its long term success.
Natural Cost (Supernova conversation)
Jerry Michalski just made a great point about looking at "natural cost" -
"The fear that Craigslist should be putting in the hearts of classified and Yellow Pages execs worldwide is: what if the "natural cost" of delivering local ads and fostering local markets is incredibly low? If you don't have operators on duty to transcribe (and misspell) ads and if you don't print on paper and haul it all over the place, you can afford to charge only one kind of advertiser -- say, companies placing want ads -- and have that pay for the rest and spill money out the other end.
And that's just classifieds. In Ads and Google we theorized about how Google might just be able to fund major communication infrastructure as a by-product of its core business (which, notably, is also self-serve advertising). What's the natural cost of telecommunications? Customer service? Other sectors?"
http://www.yi-tan.com/wiki/yi-tan/whats_the_natural_cost
"The fear that Craigslist should be putting in the hearts of classified and Yellow Pages execs worldwide is: what if the "natural cost" of delivering local ads and fostering local markets is incredibly low? If you don't have operators on duty to transcribe (and misspell) ads and if you don't print on paper and haul it all over the place, you can afford to charge only one kind of advertiser -- say, companies placing want ads -- and have that pay for the rest and spill money out the other end.
And that's just classifieds. In Ads and Google we theorized about how Google might just be able to fund major communication infrastructure as a by-product of its core business (which, notably, is also self-serve advertising). What's the natural cost of telecommunications? Customer service? Other sectors?"
http://www.yi-tan.com/wiki/yi-tan/whats_the_natural_cost
Supernova Wharton - Business in a Networked World
Jerry Michalski speaking at the Supernova Wharton San Francisco Mixer. The conversation starts with -- are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of these social technologies.
Good arguments on both sides -- interesting pattern of agreement that if we can't find information on people through social networks -- we worry. There is (for this techno-connected group) a red flag on people who do not have a healthy online presence.
Good arguments on both sides -- interesting pattern of agreement that if we can't find information on people through social networks -- we worry. There is (for this techno-connected group) a red flag on people who do not have a healthy online presence.
Supernova Discussion at Wharton West
The Supernova Wharton San Francisco Mixer gets started in a little while but the starting point is a choice between two great talks and I am finding it hard to chose between them -- Jeremiah Owyang leading a discussion on Social Graphs and Jerry Michalski on Business in a networked world... I guess I'll pick Jerry and try to catch Jeremiah during the cocktails afterwards.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Kindle Comments (Amazon Kindle)
Yes, I did. I bought a Kindle (Amazon's e-book reader) and I love it. The other day, in the "sleep" mode, the kindle had a message asking for feedback and providing an email address. I sent my comments but never heard back -- so I don't know if my comments failed to reach a human being, or if they have no mechanism (human or otherwise) for responding... Rather than lose the opportunity to have a conversation with the Kindle team, I decided to post my comments as an open letter -- I'd also love to hear what other people think of their Kindles...
Kindle team:
Thanks for a great experience overall - I am really enjoying my kindle.
I doubt I will say anything that you haven't heard, but here goes:
1) A number of navigation elements are non-intuitive -- in particular the idea of forward and back -- in my mind on a device this is firmly routed in web browsing -- so I expect to go "back" to what I was doing, not the linear "back" of a page turn. For example, if I leave a document to look up the definition of a word, I then want to go "back" to where I was just reading
2) The lack of page numbers is frustrating -- it would be nice if there was some corollary in your book formatting to page numbers so that if someone says "look at page X" then I can get there even though the electronic pagination is different from print pagination.
3) If images are removed, it would be nice to see it noted in the text that in the original book there was an image
4) I canceled my subscription to the NY Times because it is too frustrating to read. Part of that is the news is too old (I am a web junky so last nights news is stale) but part of it is formatting. I hate reading an article and then going back to the list of articles from the beginning to start scanning again for something I want to read. I figured out the trick of jumping to a 'location' but this is an unwieldy hack, forcing me to remember to jump to "78" the entire time I am reading
5) I'd pay to read email on this... of course then I'd want to reply as well :-)
6) I haven't stopped looking for the clock. Why do I have to look at a different device to see what time it is?
keep up the great work!
Kindle team:
Thanks for a great experience overall - I am really enjoying my kindle.
I doubt I will say anything that you haven't heard, but here goes:
1) A number of navigation elements are non-intuitive -- in particular the idea of forward and back -- in my mind on a device this is firmly routed in web browsing -- so I expect to go "back" to what I was doing, not the linear "back" of a page turn. For example, if I leave a document to look up the definition of a word, I then want to go "back" to where I was just reading
2) The lack of page numbers is frustrating -- it would be nice if there was some corollary in your book formatting to page numbers so that if someone says "look at page X" then I can get there even though the electronic pagination is different from print pagination.
3) If images are removed, it would be nice to see it noted in the text that in the original book there was an image
4) I canceled my subscription to the NY Times because it is too frustrating to read. Part of that is the news is too old (I am a web junky so last nights news is stale) but part of it is formatting. I hate reading an article and then going back to the list of articles from the beginning to start scanning again for something I want to read. I figured out the trick of jumping to a 'location' but this is an unwieldy hack, forcing me to remember to jump to "78" the entire time I am reading
5) I'd pay to read email on this... of course then I'd want to reply as well :-)
6) I haven't stopped looking for the clock. Why do I have to look at a different device to see what time it is?
keep up the great work!
Sunday, March 02, 2008
MSN Fakes It
Who is the terrible advertising person working for MSN? Or the stupid people approving the ads? In this billboard ad (seen on the Bay Bridge approach in San Francisco) MSN announces "There's no way you can know everything. But you can fake it." I'm sorry, what is it that MSN thinks is a good idea? Being a know-it-all? Faker? Or is this self-descriptive? Google may have the best web index, but MSN does a good job of faking it? What does MSN even stand for anymore? Is it an AOL style walled garden? Is it a jumble of content destinations? Is it a search engine? An ad network? Actually, maybe they are faking all of these things.
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