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/

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:

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.

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.

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

Supernova Wharton - Business in a Networked World

Supernova Wharton - Business in a Networked World
Originally uploaded by Ted Shelton

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.

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.

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!

MSN Fakes It

MSN Fakes It
Originally uploaded by Ted Shelton

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.

Doc Searls at There's a New Conversation

The video of Doc Searls' presentation at our New York event on February 13th, 2008 is now live!  Go to our site on blip TV to view -- The Conversation Group Videos.  Doc talks about the origins of Cluetrain, how the ideas has developed over the past 10 years, what the next 10 years will bring, and about his current research work into what he calls "vendor relationship management" (VRM).

You can also listen to the audio which is available on our iTunes podcast

The Conversation Group Podcast

We will be working to get the other speaker's presentations up as video and audio soon!

Jake McKee, formerly of Lego

Jake McKee, formerly of Lego
Originally uploaded by HowardGr

Jake McKee is a terrific speaker, and gave a wonderful presentation in New York at our "There's a New Conversation" workshop. The video of his talk will be up soon, but in the meantime we have posted an interview with him conducted by Blog Talk Radio's John Havens. Visit our website for the ongoing event series at:

Cluetrain at 10 -- http://www.cluetrainat10.com

Conversations on Social Media

Its happened! I have done my first podcast. Check out the results -- Conversations on Social Media. It sort of happened by accident. I was talking to a bunch of people about whether or not companies should start their own social networks or join existing ones. Jeremiah Owyang suggested it would make a great panel discussion and suddenly we were recording... along with Chris Heuer and Brian Oberkirch!

Doc Searls at There's a New Conversation

Doc Searls
Originally uploaded by HowardGr

Great conversation going on in NYC today at The Conversation Group's event "There's a New Conversation" -- celebrating 10 years since the origin of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Watch our new site -- http://www.cluetrainat10.com

We'll be posting video soon of the event!

New York Slush

New York Slush
Originally uploaded by Ted Shelton

Don't let the slush stop you from coming! Or if you can't come to "There's a New Conversation" tomorrow in NYC, don't worry as we will be recording Doc Searls and everyone else talking about the 10 years since the publication of The Cluetrain Manifesto and putting it on the web.

Not too late to register though if you aren't afraid of the slush:

http://conversation.eventsbot.com

There's a New Conversation

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?

Join us in New York City on February 13th for the first in a series of events this year which will reflect on the 10 years since the publication of the Cluetrain Manifesto.

Doc Searls, co-author of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Institute
Ted Shelton, partner at The Conversation Group
Josh Bernoff, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research
Thor Muller, CEO of Get Satisfaction
Jake McKee, Principal at Ant's Eye View, and past Global Community Relations Specialist for the LEGO Company

Sign up here --> http://conversation.eventsbot.com/

Advertising: Now a Conversation

Tom Giles of Businessweek asked me if I would be interested in writing down some of my thoughts on how companies are evolving the way they think about marketing in the age of conversation. The result is this "Viewpoint" published by Businessweek this morning:

Advertising: Now a Conversation

In today's environment where independent information about a product is plentiful, traditional one-way messages to consumers no longer work

It's no secret the Internet has changed the way consumers get information about products and the companies that provide them. Because so much intelligence about a potential transaction is so readily available from independent sources, the message provided by conventional advertising has declined in value to consumers, who even question its trustworthiness.

None of this is to say that traditional one-way advertising—say, the kind you find on TV or in print publications and even banner ads on a Web page—can't play an important role in communicating with customers. At its best, the mission of the marketer is the creation of meaning. Taking a common product and imbuing it with the aspiration of adventure, achievement, or beauty was one of the amazing feats of the 20th century.

continue reading on the Businessweek website... Advertising: Now a Conversation

Democratic Party Nominees Debate in Nevada

I have been registered as a Democrat since the day I could vote. And this year will be no different, I will vote for the Presidential candidate nominated by the Democratic party. I have been a partisan though since early on in the process, startling friends and family by putting an Obama sticker on my bumper (I don't generally like bumper stickers).

So I watched the debate in Nevada the other night prepared to love Obama and be satisfied with one of the three.

Other than being completely bored by the debate though, my only reaction was one of being disheartened by the candidates complete unwillingness to answer a direct question.

Anyone else have this reaction? I mean, sure -- some of the questions were inappropriate. But rather than just give a rambling non-answer, wouldn't it be better for the candidate to say "I am not going to answer that question." Or better yet, to explain why they won't answer?

Visit Asilomar

I probably use this space too often to complain about a company, product, or service that I have been disappointed with, and not often enough to talk about one that I have been happy with. With that in mind in 2008 I will try to do a better job of talking about the great company, product and service experiences I have -- starting with my family's vacation to Asilomar.

Located between Pebble Beach and Monterey, CA in the town of Pacific Grove, Asilomar is an amazing gem. Primarily a "conference center" Asilomar is also available to vacationers when there are rooms unused by the conferences. With beautiful Julia Morgan designed buildings, an incredible beach a short walk from the grounds, and easy access to the best of Carmel, Monterey, and the rest of the area it would be hard to go too far wrong.

There is an interesting trade-off though -- the Asilomar Conference Grounds has been a part of the California Park system since the 1950s and the facilities are operated under an agreement with a concessions contractor. This keeps prices low for such an incredible location, but results on low infrastructure investments. If it wasn't for this arrangement, Asilomar might have long ago been sucked into the Pebble Beach developments that are a stone's throw away. So I am glad that there is a way for families like mine to afford a beach vacation in Monterey. On the other hand, it would be nice if some of the more worn out parts of the facility would get a face lift.

But none of that will impede your families enjoyment -- the staff was great, the facilities include a great room with pool tables, ping pong, and endless board games. The aforementioned beach is beautiful and has something for everyone -- sand castles, nature walks, etc. And we also went wine tasting in Carmel Valley and found some great new wines and wineries!

Highly recommended. Here is the link again -- Asilomar.

Politweets.com -- Following the Election via Twitter

Here is a good one: "Obama is Apple, Hilary is Dell: http://tinyurl.com/2sfd72 (via Seeking Alpha) --ericlitman reported 2 minutes ago." I have no idea who Eric Litman is and never would have seen this cool article on Seeking Alpha if it hadn't been for this really ingenious web app that searches Twitter for "tweets" about all of the political candidates:

Politweets.com

As many people have ridiculed Twitter as being useless as have adopted it as a core part of their online toolset. So with the pro-twitter and con-twitter lines having been drawn, it is refreshing to get an application like Politweets which brings out the really intriguing aspect of Twitter -- the ability to tap into the pulse of some very interesting distributed event (like an election) and see what is happening.

My friend Doug March is one of the people behind Character140, the group that has created the Politweets application. But lest anyone think that they are only trying to show Twitter's good side, last month they released a similar tool called Twittertale.com which shows the use of foul language on Twitter.

Both applications work the same way -- the search through all public Twitter posts to find uses of specific words and display this posts, along the way "ranking" the words for the frequency of their use. In the case of Politweets this also gives us the ability to see how much a candidate is being talked about in real time (at least how much they are being tweeted about).

Is it "citizen journalism" ? I personally think it is more like listening in on a whole bunch of private conversations -- but it is still a fascinating application of social media. And with the primaries in New Hampshire and elsewhere giving us all a lot to talk about, it is also very entertaining and maybe will even give us something to learn about ourselves, our nation, and this radical new kind of community technology.

The evil of docx

So Microsoft has done it again. As the number of Vista user increases, the number of Word documents I receive in the new Vista format increases. And of course, Microsoft has created a new format that cannot be read, even if you have bought Office 2004 on the Mac. Does anyone other than me find this completely unreasonable?

The only answer open to me, and every other non Vista user -- ask the sender of the document to resend in an old format.

Frankly it just makes me angry at Microsoft. It can't possibly be helping the impression of them as a company. There is no reasonable explanation for another document format change other than an attempt to force upgrades to Vista.

Couldn't we all simply refuse to use this new document type? Do we need to start a protest movement?

Fisher Price Disappoints

I hesitated before buying a Fisher Price product. I already have a bad impression of this brand as being associated with poor quality products. My latest experience, buying a "Kid Tough" Fisher Price digital camera for my four year-old has reinforced my negative opinion. This camera is a piece of junk.

The ergonomics attracted me to the device, first suggested by my mother. My daughter loves taking pictures but we worry about her holding our "expensive" digital camera because she has a tendency to swing it around... So the idea behind "kid tough" is that the camera is easier for small hands and built to take the likely bonks from dropping or swinging.

Three fatal flaws:

1) The camera provides an easy to use two-eye viewer for selecting the shot (think binoculars) -- BUT the image shown doesn't line up with the image the camera takes. Result - heads always cut off in photos.

2) Simple anti-jitter software would have helped an enormous amount -- come on! Kids are not going to stand still to take pictures! And with the slow shutter speed of the cheap ccd they used, every photo comes out blurry.

3) Speaking of cheap ccd -- advertised as 1.3 megapixels, don't miss the word "interpolated" -- which is to say, the photos are all very grainy.

No more Fisher Price for this household! It may be inexpensive, but junk at any price is a waste of money!