Global Neighbourhoods

A few clarifications about FastCompany TV & GNTV

I got hit with a firehose of questions regarding FastCompany.TV, GlobalNeighborhoodsTV (GNTV) and my new collaboration with Scoble. A few drill down further than I can answer, but I'll try to answer a few that I was frequently asked.

• FastCompany.TV (FCTV) is intended to be a video blogging network. Scoble.TV is the first node and he is a FastCompany.TV employee who's show launches March 3 as does GNTV. They are separate shows. Robert and I would like to do something together, but that is a future show possibility.
• GNTV will have it's own page on the FCTV site as will Scoble.TV.
• Robert and I may cover the same people and companies. We may even interview the same person at the same time when that is easier for all parties. But he and I have different styles and ask different questions.
• I am not a FastCompany employee and I have no plans to become one. I am contract talent. My focus is to produce great content on GNTV. While Robert and I will talk and plan, his job is to do what he has always done and to build an FCTV network. He has a ton of ideas for programs but will build slowly at first. His goal is to have six GNTV programs by year end.
• FCTV is a separate, but related, entity to Fast Company and FastCompany.com. We are the same brand, but I have not had any contact with FC editorial staff. I cannot help you or your clients get interviews there. If you have something that is not right for my show, but I think Scoble might like, I'll forward it to him.
• I plan to produce a minimum of 15 clips per month, hopefully more. I will vary the length greatly and let viewers tell me the length they prefer.
• The best way to pitch me is through email. A direct Twitter to shelisrael also works. I do not take phone calls from people I do not know. I will try to get back to anyone who requests an interview, but it may take me a few days.
• I will travel for GNTV but it limited by time and budget. The best way to see me is when you are in the SF Bay Area.
• Like any media person, I'm interested in exclusive breaking news, but that is not my central focus. I will show some product demo, but that again is not my central focus. I am interested in telling people, mostly how social media is changing life, customer relationships and life.
• The best style to use with me is a naked converstaion. If I find you using talking points that were refined in committee. I may be polite, but it is unlikely that I will post your interview.

Got more questions? Send them in. What you ask me helps me figure out this new endeavor of mine.

DEMO & The normalization of social media

I'm killing airport wait time after 3 great days at DEMO 08. I think it is my 15th DEMO, but I'm not sure. I've lost count. It was a good conference, as it always is and a personal favorite of mine. For me it has been a place of many firsts. When I started my own PR agency, it was the 1st place I launched a client. In 2005, it was where Scopble and I signed our book deal with the Wiley guys who flew down to meet us. This time it was where I launched my 345th career, this time as a Video Blogger for FastCompany TV.

This year was as different as for me as it was the same. It was the same because I have this aging circle of friends who get together at this event twice each year and most of us have been doing it for a good many years. We used to be the young disruptors in the back of the room. Now we sit up front where connection is better. It was different because I was my debut as a video blogger. I interviewed about 20 people all of whom connected with my core topic of social media's impact on business and culture. I won't really know how well I did until I watch the clips over the next two days.

I'm old enough to know that however good or bad they turn out. I will get better. But there was one paragraph in all the interviews I conducted that is resonating with me. It came in my very last interview, which happened to be Chris Shipley, the respected executive producer of the past 20-something DEMOs.

I asked her what takeaway trends she saw from this year and she told me that it would be the last year that DEMO would have a special segment focused on social media. This from the person credited with introducing the term, several DEMOs back.

Does ths mean that I'm getting into producing a program on a topic that is already becoming passe? Not it all. Chris put it another way and I can restate here without checking the clip. But her key point is that social media was normalizing. It was becoming a part of nearly all 77 companies presenting at DEMO and it can be expected to be part of most of the new technologies introduced at DEMOs moving forward.

But the social media elements, the community functionality, polling, blog, video pieces are no longer the news.  They are just as normal as the line f a decade ago when presenter would boast with enthusiasm that "IT'S ONLINE!!!" One year it bacame a "so what," and we moved on.

What this means is that most innovation is now social in some sense and that has enormous implications for where society and culture and business are going. Social media is doing what all good technologies should do. They should fade into background as we become accustomed to them.

In the foreground should be people and that is my take-away from this most enjoyable event.

Demo 08 Day #1 was great as best I recall

I had planned to give an extensive report on companies I liked on Day #1, using my abundant Twitter entries as my notebook. This is difficult, because I cannot access Twitter this morning. Instead of railing about that, I'm going to try from memory to name the companies that impressed me most. Since I've been waiting for Twitter for over half an hour I'll be shorter than I wanted to be.
Here are some of the ones that I think will endure and change the marketplace in social media. Links are too sites:

• Livescribe of Oakland, CA has created a magic pen that may change the world for a few reasons. The device is a record, optical recognizer and translator. It uses regular paper that has been treated. You can copy the paper or make a PDX. If I'm interviewing you, I use the LiveScribe devise and write down a single word to remember the section. After the talk, I tap on the word and get a recording f what was said at the moment I write down the word. It translates between English, Spanish and Arabic as well as other languages. Which means I could use it to condust a conversation with another person who speaks none of the languages I speak and LiveScribe serves as a translator. The 1 Gig version is priced at $149 from their site in March and retail deals are allegedly imminent.
• Seesmic Maybe it was seeing friends Loic LeMeur and Cathy Brooks presenting that got me so excited, but I think not. Seesmic got it's start in the last half of last year simply by using Twitter (on good days) to attract it's 1st 2000 enthusiastic fans who have been spreading the word ever since. Seesmic is a clean, simple video producing platform that gives you a 5 minute maximum for content. The company introduced two new feature: (1) the ability to track conversations on each Seesmic post and (2) mobile capability, which I think greatly enhances the appeal of the service.
• Skyfire  Is a fast, tight mobile browser. In the demo it let you click and watch Videos and all sorts of stuff that today feels like your wwatching paint dry while waiting for. If it is that fast and clean in the hands of real people in realtime environments, then we all want it. At least the "we all" that have become mobile devoce dependent and see the day when that device is our primary computer on the road often travelled.
• iVideotunes Is a music teaching system. People more musically adept than me say it is really great. But it scored a high note for me at DEMO because they brought John Oates of Hall & Oates onstage to demo it. He sang a few bars of "She's Gone" and then joined n on the DEMO jam session last night, whoch I skipped because I'm getting on in years and I need my sleep.
• SceneCaster introduced DreamWeaver, which allows people to easily embed virtual reality elements into a flat website. You can also use the 3D technology to wander from scene to scene by clicking on doors. I think that the promise of virtual world technology is still nascent. It's nice to see it starting to move beyond the realm of SecondLife into other applications.
• GreenPlug Green technologies are just starting to come into the marketplace. This is the best and most financially viable I've seen so far. GreenPlug is really a chip the creates a universal AC/DC power adapter than (I think) goes into the cord. Fr mobile users it means you'll have one charge chord for the 97 devices you travel with. For the planet, it means less electricity usage. For the company, I think it means money and lots of it.
• Flypaper of Phoenix lets anyone create a Flash Demo without programming which should appeal to anyone who wants to look cool online. The core tools are simple drag and drop that you can customize. PowerPoint was introduced in 1987. It hasn't much changed. Flypaper may be the one that finally kicks it aside.
• Vidyo is a teleconferencing system that lets people using disperate technology to all videochat in HD Quality. I liked it, but am not convinced that it is "more better" enough to replace Skype. They would argue they are after different customers: workgroups, collaborators, but it remains to be seen if the market will agree.

• Voyant is not a social media company and I wasn't really that fond of its presentation. But it allows a simple personal finance management system that I need and I think a whole lot of other people need. This product should be acquired by the Quicken folk at Intuit and hopefully soon.

I'm out of time. Please realize that this list is incomplete and is focused on social media. I hope the Twitter gods will allow me to report on the morning session of DEMO Day 2 which starts in 20 minutes.

I'm at DEMO 08, awash in Social Media Tools

Me, not the conference.

I've been trying to figure out how to manage what I do during my two days her in Palm Springs for the DEMO. Here's what I plan to do. Of course, it may not come out this way:

• I will be reporting in little nuggets all day on Twitter.  You can sign in there then follow me at shelisrael for instant updates. You can also send me questions on Twitter that I will answer. If you are at DEMO we can use Twitter to have a back channel conversation about our experience.
• At the end of the day, I will use my Twitter feeds as a notebook, to write a longer pieve on what happened, then add my analysis.
• For Global Neighborhoods TV (GNTV), I will be video interviewing several people.  Chris Shipley, the conference executive producer, and inventor of the phrase "social media" has agreed to talk with me as has Loic LeMeur who will be launching Seesmic from the DEMO dais today.

So many tools. I hope I don't get confused and blog about me video recording my Twitter feeds.

Pat Phelan Videos from my Living Room

      

      [ Pat Phelan cozying up to my wife Paula on our living room couch. Photo by Shel]

I forgot that Pat used his Nokia and Qik to interview my entire family while a dinner guest in my home last week. It's a great lesson for me to keep other people in front of the camera and me out of red t-shirts.

He kindly omitted to mention that he was the subject of my very first GlobalNeighborhoods TV (GNTV) and I botched it badly.  The good news is he'll be back next month and I'll be able to interview him a second time, then.

Anyway, my first GNTV posts won't be up for another five weeks. Kill some time by watching me refuse to let Pat Livestream the news. Now it can be told.

I'm Joining Scoble at FastCompany TV

In November 2003, I put up my first blog post: "Old dogs & New tricks." I had  not a clue how my life was about to change. Maybe I should call this one: "Older dog. Newer trick."

I am about to become a video blogger. As of today, it is my main gig.

I'm joining Robert Scoble at FastCompany.TV. My show will be called GlobalNeighbourhoods TV (GNTV). I'll be covering social media's impact on culture and business. I hope to speak with people from all over the world, people in start ups and in the enterprise, people who are changing the world or are being changed by what is happening. While my primary focus will be business, I'll also look at government, academia, education, youth and assorted institutions.

GNTV premiers March 3, the same day as Scoble TV. Between now and then, starting tonight at the DEMO conference, I will be interviewing people for my new program. Beyond that, I'm looking for people everywhere who can address any aspect of social media's impact on culture and business. If you think you can help, please email me.

It's going to be great to once again to work with Robert Scoble. Naked Conversations is the child of the best professional collaboration I've had. Scoble is an online video pioneer who has twice opened my eyes and imagination to its incredible potential.

The first time was when we were working on the book. Robert's day job at Microsoft was to walk around with a video camera, talking to geeks about their jobs. The result showed how video could find and extract humanity where none was perceived to exist.

Then he did it again last week at Davos. Holding a tiny Nokia in his hand, we could watch him chat with significant makers of contemporary history.

 

Scoble's video is the opposite of what broadcast TV news has always been. I was a newspaper reporter in the 60s when I saw my first mobile TV news van intrude onto a news set. I was interviewing a politician in a parking lot, when the van halted about six feet from us, lights shining on us. Out stepped some guy in a suit and tan followed by an entourage of sound, lighting and even  a makeup technicians.

Even I could feel the excitement. I wondered if newspaper reporters would soon be obsolete. I knew I could write well about events. I could tell you what it was like to have been there. I could write circles around this suit with a tan. But that camera.That camera could actually show you what it was like and I simply could not beat that with mere written words.

It didn't turn out that way. It might have but it did not. Broadcast news was to intrusive to the scenes that it covered. It's very presence changed the event. A reporter with a spiral notebook and a Bic pen just walked in where news was happening. The scene changed little or not at all.

Not so with the TV camera. It's arrival changes the scene. Real people stop conversing and they start performing. The camera became the event.

Now comes online video. Video reporters hold tinmier less obtrusive tools. We shoot in natural light. Our microsphones do not resemble construction site equipment. We don't cover our wrinkles because you'll probably miss them on the tiny screens where we will be viewed.

We are bringing reality back into video, at least in many cases. We are more like the reporter of my youth than the TV guy. But we add yet another asset. We don't intrude on the scene but we participate in it. We use our cameras to extend it. To let others who are geographically seperated participate and as I am about to demonstrate, almost anyone can do it. Some of you already do. More of you will.

For Scoble and me, this is still about Naked Conversations and I am extremely excited about the possibilities.

Wish me luck.

Is Bob attempting a malicious attack?

Ever since I banned Bob, not once but twice (He cam back as Fake Ken with a new IP address), my register has been filling with this:"   escape(location.href)   ' " I have never seen this before and I have dozens of them.

Is this a malicious attack of some kind? Does anyone know?

My Living Room Policy--or why I banned Bob

Every six months or so, I find I have to repost my Living Room Policy, first stated in October 2006. If you want the executive summary it goes like this:

I treat people who come here with courtesy and respect, but if you are rude to me and my guests, I'll ask you to be nice, If you get rude again I will toss you out and never let you back in. I also do not let people into my home, who won't let me know who they are, then I am going to throw them out and not let them back in.

The most recent one is from someone calling himself Bob. No last name, no URL, just Bob. He put down his email as: anontroll07@gmail.com. Get it: "Anonymous troll."

You can see Bob's first two comments on my recent Open Letter to the Twitter Guys. The rest are cyberdust.

Bob has not been rude at all, even though we disagreed. He thought that since I am not a developer I did not have the right to comment on the scalability of Ruby on Rails. Now, I will submit that I may not know what I am talking about when it comes to the tech problems with Twitter, the subject we were discussing. But I maintain that on my own site I have every right to make a fool of myself intentionally or accidentally.

I told Bob about the living room policy and that if he did not identify himself I would ban him. He didn't like that and told me why I was a hypocrite demanding my own freedom of speech and demanding his right to speak in my virtual livingroom.

So I blocked him. 86. Poof. No more Bob. Bob, who claims to be a veteran developer with more than 20 years creds is now sending comments every few minutes. I may be no technical wizard and I do know how to tell Typepad to ban all comments from this anonymous troll. Typepad is sometimes slow to get it going and that means I need to play the silly takedown game tonight, but by tomorrow, Bob will be gone.

I feel good about this.

SAP Global Survey: Montreal's Michel LeBlanc

    

Candor on Montreal Culture and Radical Transparency   

 

                           [Michel LeBlanc File Photo.]

Michel LeBlanc is the most prominent French-Language blogger in Quebec Province, and probably all Canada's most popular French language business blogger. I invited him to participate in my SAP Global Survey of Social Media's Impact on Business and Culture because language is a continuously reemerging issue, and in North America, that triangulates to Montreal, our most bilingual city, and where there is a history of strain over language and culture.

But in speaking with Michel, I was surprised to discover that his personal life had traversed onto a significantly more controversial issue than just language. In so doing, this interview provides the best example so far of the benefits and influence of what he calls, "radical transparency."

A respected Internet enterprise consultant, Michel has impressive educational credentials. He holds an M.Sc. in eCommerce from HEC Montreal/U, an interdisciplinary program involving Law School, Computer School and HEC, Quebec's premier business school. He specialized in web management and conducted extensive research in Web marketing. He published extensively related to that.

His masters research was published at the Center for Interuniversity Research (CIRANO) on analysis of the organization which is usually only for PhD candidates. In connection with that degree, he presented his first of many keynotes on the impact of web services on businesses.

After graduating, he founded Adviso inc., Canada's first French-language Internet business consulting service, which he sold in 2005. More recently, he started Analyweb. Despite the corporate name, Analyweb is simply Michel Leblanc.  He works alone as a consultant, speaker and writer on Web marketing, web strategies and the use of innovative technologies in business settings. His clients are mostly North American and French blue chips, but he also works with small and medium enterprises that have a strong Web presence.

Here are his answers to my questions. I have taken some liberties, by inserting some of his comments from subsequent email:

1. Montreal is considered the most bi-lingual major City in North America. What percentage of Montreal speaks English and what percentage speaks French?  What percentage of Montreal is bilingual?

I do not have official statistics, but I estimate Montreal is 20% unilingual English; 80% French; and 40% bilingual. The French, of course, are a minority in our country and on our continent. Sometimes, the Anglos are so powerful that we feel we are a minority event in Montreal. Anyhow, we are submerged by Anglo culture and media on a regular basis.

2. Culturally, how much do the French and English speaking populations mix together? Would you say Montreal is a culturally integrated or separated society?  Is their much prejudice between the two cultures?

Historically Montreal is divided in two at Saint Laurent Blvd. West of it is English and East of it is French. Both cultures connect and mix on the boulevard.

There is still some prejudice and misunderstanding between French and Anglos. There is still a separatist movement in Quebec Province, but the clashes are coming mostly from outside Montreal and are rhetorical rather than actual physical confrontations.

3. When I met you a year ago at a wonderful blogger dinner there were more than 30 bloggers in the room, about half French speaking. I was later told that this was the first time French and English language bloggers had a dinner together. Have their been more in the last year?  Why or why not?

The dinner where you came is called Yulbiz and it is a meeting of business people interested in technologies such as blogs, and bloggers who are interested in business. This concept has been exported to other places and is now in five countries. I started it nearly two years ago.

Occasionally, English and French speaking bloggers get together and at another event called Yulblog (for any type of bloggers). Both communities mix well. But at Yulbiz, we still have problems attracting the core of English-speaking business bloggers. They started their own thing, the Montreal Tech Entrepreneur Breakfasts. Both communities interact at events such as basecamp, casecamp or facebookcamp. But those events were started in the English world first and it is the French who joined in rather than the opposite.

 

 

4. Tell me about business. Do the French and English-speaking communities conduct business together? what language is used?

 

French and English business people are working together but it is always in English. I presume it would be the same scenario as with the Spanish speaking community in California. Minorities are the one that have to adapt.

 

5. Let's talk about you.  What social media tools do you use? Are they for business for personal use?

My blog really changed my business.

Right now, more than half my business has come directly from my blog and the other half comes from the perceived notion that I am "the" expert. My blog has attracted a lot of media attention. I am regularly asked as an expert guest by media that wants to discuss e-economy, the web in business context and innovation. This contributes to my "aura" of being an expert and helps me sell speaking engagements that again, brings water to the mill.

So it is all interconnected. I also am using LinkedIn to gather positive feedback from client and I use Facebook to get to know my clients on a more personal level.


6. How has social media changed your personal reputation?

 

I recently used my blog to reveal a condition from which I am suffering. I have Gender Identity Dysphoria and the only way to cure myself, is to become a woman. I started hormone therapy two months age and will change everything else in the following months.

Since I told my readers (Michel's English translation) customers and friends, I have received a wave of support like you could not believe. I have retained all my customers and even gained new ones because of the perceived truthfulness and courage they saw in my disclosure (In fact, it was rather survival and the belief in radical transparency on my part, but I am very happy about how it has come out). I also created a Myspace Account under a pseudonym where I am connected to two hundred transsexuals worldwide and it is, in fact, my personal virtual support network.

7. You must have had a great deal of faith in your readers and your clients to make that post.

It is a bit more complicated than that. I did not have faith in my readership support. As a matter of fact I was flabbergasted by it. I did it more out of conviction and because I did not want to lie about my physical changes than anything else.

 

8. Let's return to the issues of language and culture. You blog in French and you don't translate, although you speak English extremely well. Why do you not post in two languages the way Loic Le Meur does it?

 

It is a matter of time and resources. Loïc does not blog alone. His wife is by his side and he has a team that works with him. In fact, I also have an English blog www.web-marketing-frog.blogspot.com, but I do not maintain it anymore, except for the recent translation. Perhaps that will motivate me to return to it when I have more resources.

I am proud of my French origins and I know I can be of great help to my fellow French-speaking readers as in English, I would be lost in the sea of the Web and there are far more pertinent resources in English than there are in French.

9. What impact do you think social media has had on Canadians in business? How do you see that changing?

Facebook has been widely adopted by Canadians but business people are still scared of it. Several businesses are trying to firewall it and they do not see the potential benefit of knowing your business contacts on a more personal level. Although personal blogs have a very long history in Canada, business blogs are still just emerging.

In several ways, Canadians are not that innovative on the online scene (except for developers, Facebook is a Canadian product. So is Blackberry). My explanation for it is that while France was still playing with Minitel, Canadians were investing in mainframes and heavy business applications.

Then France caught up with the Web and started with a clean slate. Here, the traditional integrators are very powerful and are still "the" reference for major clients. Furthermore, they are still thinking of leveraging their old investments (in the wrong way with old school integration) rather than trying to see what else they could be doing. I wrote 5 years ago about how Web Services could change the way we integrate business applications and how much money it could save and five years later, I could count on one hand, the projects that are being developed.

 

 

Scrabulous Founders Post an Update

The big news at Scrabulous for me is that I am finally beating Arik Hesseldahl from BusinessWeek for a change.  Score one for the Social Media guys. But when I logged in to enjoy the 56 point margin I'm enjoying,

I noticed this note from the founders, who have received a Cease & Desist Letter from Scrabble owners Hasbro & Mattel:

We are really grateful to the entire Scrabulous community for the exceptional support that has been provided. It is amazing to see that a small application has touched so many people across the world! There has been a lot of speculation about the future of Scrabulous and it is currently impossible for us to comment on this matter. However, like always, we shall update you as soon as we can.

In the meantime, please click here to enjoy a song created by an anonymous Scrabulous fan. :)

Best Regards,
Rajat & Jayant

It really doesn't say much, but it's nice to see the founders trying to have a conversation with their customers., don't you think?