Global Neighbourhoods

China Lifts 300 Million out of World Poverty

The World Food Program (WFP) has issues a press release announcing an alliance with China. That itself would not motivate post on the topic, but it was the second paragraph that knocked me on my heels:

"Having lifted 300 million of its own people out of poverty in less than a generation - surely one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century - China has now pledged to commit more of its considerable resources to helping us help those in desperate need elsewhere," James Morris, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, said in Beijing."

Elevating 300 million people out of poverty is a  stupendous and positive achievement. That's a number almost as large as the US population and represents one in every four citizens of this country of 1.4 billion people.

The more I know about China, the less I understand about China. It is simultaneously, a modern, emerging and feudal place. While outsiders get snapshots and draw conclusions, we often do not understand the complexity of a situation. We see Tianemen, Tibet and jailed bloggers and we become horrified or at least indignant and rightfully so. These are ugly snapshots, but stack them up and they do not reveal even a fraction of the overall picture.

I tend to feel people should form the country they want under the government they want and so I side with Tibet. I greatly admire the Dalai Lama and so I sympathize with a free Tibet. I really know nothing about China's historic claim or why the world turned it's back 50 years ago. I suspect that ignorance is shared by several hundred million Chinese.

From my view, the wart on China's image is not China. It is one wart.  I approve of Tibet's proponents showing non violent, dissent to draw attention and sympathy to their cause. But to deprive China of this moment of greatness, when the athlete of the world compete in a most peaceful of venues in a place that struggles with labyrinthine issues of rapid emergence to me would be a shame.

At this time and in this world, it seems to me that China is to be commended for allowing 300 million people to put food on their plates, even by those who loathe their behavior in Tibet. I don't for sure, but if I understand the teaching of the Dalai Lama, I think he would agree.

[NOTE: Several hours after posting this, my frind Isaac Mao in China tweeted me to say that this news has not yet been released in China. Very puzzling.]

New Media Jim, Tom Foremski & I together at SNCR Forum

I very rarely promote my speaking engagements, often to the chagrin of show producers. But this engagement, just finalized a few minutes ago just tickles me and may be worth your time to attend. It isn't me, that causes me to break this rule, it's who I'm speaking with and the relevance of the topic.

Jim Long has been an NBC cameraman for nearly 10 years. His current assignment is the dubious distinction of following George Bush. He goes where Bush goes in the world and that recently included  African. Jim has been behind the camera in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Those of you who use Twitter know him as NewMediaJim, one of the most popular, accessible and likable residence of Twitterville.

Tom Foremski, the former Financial Times tech business editor who now heads the team at Silicon Valley Watch, the insightful, provocative popular blog. When it comes to stories about business and technology, Tom has been there and done that and he talks about what he has seen with a sense of humor and occasional outrage.

Jim and Tom are two of the best story tellers I know and I am honored to be on the dais with them at the upcoming SNCR Forum in Sonoma April 22-5. We are going to talk about the social, cultural and business implications of the transition from old media to new. i knw they will be great because they are two of the best conversational story tellers I know. I was supposed to have a half-hour lunch with Jim at SXSW. It last nearly three hours. I've had more fun hanging out with Tom in a Palo Alto parking garage than I often have at planned Silicon Valley receptions.

We are going to talk about the transition from old media to new. It is not a panel. It is not a presentation, but a simple conversation. Each of us will talk for a few minutes, then hopefully attendees will join us in an open discussion.

I'm very juiced, because this is a new topic as far as I can tell. Yet it is one that each of us understands and almost everyone cares about. As we move from broadcast to conversation, what happens to news and even entertainment. Who gets to tell the stories that become history? What happens to that claim of journalistic objectivity. Jim schleps an NBC camera that costs many thousands of dollars. Then his footage is edited by experts. How does that compare with what some of you did today with a Nokia N95 and Qik?

Come see us. Seats are still available. If you want to come and are short of cash, seak to me. I may be able to get a break for special cases.

The right to be anonymous

Techdirt reports that the California Appeals Court has upheld the right to be anonymous online. I think that this is a wise ruling that is in the interest of free speech. For me it has a Voltairian twist. While I don't much like anonymous comments, character bloggers and contrivances the diminish transparency, I respect people's rights to post anonymously as much as I believe in my own right to remive such Comments on my own blog.

There are times when anonymity makes a good deal of sense. Years ago EA Spouse anonymously posted about awful working conditions at Electronic Arts. She did so out of fear of employer reprisals against her husband. More recently and seriously Egypt's Wael Abbas posts anonymously video recorded footage of government and police abuse in his country.

There are lighter sides to anonymity. While I am no great fan of Dan Lyons, his Fake Steve Jobs hit many nerves in the time-honored tradition of satire. Now that we all knw it was him, the thing seems much less interesting and seems to be diminished in conversations.

All this being said, I think it is generally lame to post anonymously, particuarly if your post is critical of a person or company. I personally respect people who have the courage and conviction to put their own names behind what they have to say, to stake their own reputations on the accusations that they make. I also support my LivingRoom Policy which allows me the right to take down anonymous comments whenevr I feel like it.

I think Ehrich Weiss summarized it best in a comment he left on the TechDirt post: "The thing we often forget is that the right to offend is much more important than the right not to be offended."

 

eShel. And the winners are ...

Well, midnight has come and gone and the winners of two hours of my social media consulting services are:

• Wayne Mulligan, who upped his own previous high bid to make it a nice round $500. Wayne
• Rob LaGesse, who upped his previous pre-emptive bid to $700
• Some kids in a country like Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Zambia and So. Africa. Our small donation goes a long way to giving these kids the books, bricks and mortar for schools where they will learn to read. Reading will change their lives and their cultures for the better.

Wayne & Rob, thanks to both of you. Please contact me at shelisrael1@gmail.com so we can work out details for both your contribution and how you would like to engage me.

I am honored that John Wood, the founder/CEO of RoomtoRead found us through Google Blog Alerts and dropped by to thank us. He would make a great blogger and I hereby extend an offer to him of free consulting to get a RoomtoRead blog started to tell the organization's remarkable story and raise more money. John, I am in San Carlos, and would be happy to visit you in the Presidio. I just won't run with you. I'm only good for 3-5 10 minute miles.

To anyone parents out there, RoomtoRead needs books suitable for children.  They have already donated over one million books to children in developing countries. When you kid ois through with them, please send your books to:

  Room to Read
  The Presidio
  P.O. Box 29127
  San Francisco, CA 94129

If you do not have any books suitable for children, then a gift of money--or even stock--is always appropriate.

I am not going to push this matter.  There are a great many charities and many bloggers have repeatedly demonstrated their passions and generosities for good causes. I think RoomtoRead is a particularly well run organization doing important work.  If helping them became a blog mime, I would be very proud. I've done my bit--at least for now.  I hope someone out there picks it up.

Let's pass the fundraising gauntlet from site to site. Just think of the miracles that would happen, if 75 million bloggers each chipped in a buck to do something good.

Major Firefox Security Flaw Uncovered

CNET reports that Secunia has uncovered a "highly critical" security flaw in Firefox 2.0 and later versions, which can allow a malicious attacker to gain remote control of your computer.

When Firefox first came out, a compelling reason to switch from Microsoft explorer was that Firefox was more secure. At the time, it's userbase was extremely small and dominated by very geeky people.  As Firefox gains mainstream adoption, it seems to me that bad new like this had to happen. If users are moving from one browser to the other, then the bad guys are pretty certain to follow.

Scoble iPhone Story shows traditional media can still thrill

[Jeremiah Owyang and Robert Scoble admiring huge SJ Mercury News' Page 1 story and picture of Robert and son Patrick, who got to Apple Store at 3 am to be first in line for iPhone. Photo by Shel.]

By now, you probably know that Scoble and his son Patrick were he first in line to get the iPhone at the Apple Store in Palo Alto.  despite the fact that a guy named Steve Jobs showed up on the scene, media attention centered on Robert and Patrick.They were ubiquitous.

I thought it was cool that Ustream, a company I represent, had video online before Podtech, a company where Scoble works. It was a little later that I discover NPR a traditional broadcaster had scooped them both.

In fact, of all the things Robert has done, no single incident has stirred as much traditional media attention as being the first Apple hometown denizen to actually buy this new elegant device. Co-authoring naked Conversations didn't come close, nor did leaving Microsoft or joining Podtech. Nothing like being the first in line and having a highly quotable kid with you.

But what surprised me just a little is the excitement traditional media generates. In the course of the day, a half dozen of my friends contacted me to tell me that Scoble's picture was in one paper or on TV or somewhere. My mother in law, eying the Mercury story at a barbecue yesterday in Robert's backyard wanted to know why I hadn't gone down there so that I could have had my picture in the paper.

For those of us who are champions of Citizen Journalism, and new media. For those of us who talk so easily and freely about the death of the Metropolitan newspaper in most US cities, there is some cause to pause. There is something about getting your picture in the aper and your face on the traditional tube that still electrifies us all.

Breast Cancer site gets X Rating

Lemon Margaritas is a  breast cancer survivor's hosted on the Seattle Post Intelligencer's citizen blog site authored by Susan Metters who seems to me to be a pretty brave person with a good sense of humor and positive attitude. Recently she checked out Mingle2.com a dating site recommended by a friend.

One Mingle2 feature is that it offers a blog rating system. Using film rating codes, it scans your blog and rates it.  To her surprise, Susan received an NC-17 rating, the new equivalent of an X-Rating.

Why?  Because she used the word "breast 27 times, not to mention "Hell" twice and "drugs" once. By contrast, the blog, received a spiffy clean PG rating even though I used the word "dick" twoce, both being the first name of a person who left a comment.

This shows you a certain bone-headedness of ratings based on keyword searches. We know that until we have a semantic web, computers will lack basic common sense.  You would just hope that the same statement wasn't true of the people who run those sites.

Google Analytics. It tells me where you're at.

It's not the numbers it's the geography.  If the truth be told, my range is pretty constant.  If I blog a lot, I have about 25,000 visitors a month.  If I'm sparser in posting, I drop to about 17,000.  At the peak of Naked Conversations, we were hitting 30,000 a month and when Robert and I got into a virtual barroom brawl with Amazon's CTO, we had our only 50,000 visitor month ever. I don't really need to look to know what's going on there. The signals I get from Technorati, Typepad and Analytics all reinforce the accuracy of each other.  They come closer all the time.

What fascinates me, and the reason I spend time every day on Google Analytics  is the map overlay of where people are sitting when they visit this blog. If you look at it by continent, country and city many stories get told. I am more popular by far in cities where I've made public appearances than not. About 40 percent of my readership comes from outside the US. Per total population, I am more widely read in Canada than in the US.

I am more popular in Dublin than anywhere else on Earth. I assume Analytics includes in includes Cork, where I have visited twice and enjoy a few ongoing friendships and conversations with people there.  Toronto and London are usually in my top five or six cities and they are also places where I maintain friendships and have spoken. I'm bigger in Tallinn, Estonia than in Moscow and that is no surprise.  When I wrote about Russia being a cyberbully to their little neighbor, my Tallinn readership swelled by over 500%. Actually, it was the first time I saw noticeable readership in Moscow as well and it is nice to know that even when I'm shouting, someone seems to be listening.

Mentions help. When my friend KD Paine spoke in Dubai, she mentioned me. My readership there shot from 2 to about 90.  Now a month later, I have an average of 35 visits a day from Dubai, and that residual impact is greatly appreciated.

The diversity is amazing. I have been visited in the past month by people on all continents, residing in 2,234 communities. I had a regular reader in Rwanda, but he seems to have disappeared.Overall, I have nearly 300 African visitors daily.  I have 11 readers in the Palestinian territories and as many readers in Arab states as I have in Israel. Someone in a place called Petah Tiqua seems to read me daily. More than 500 people read me in the happy isles of Oceana.

To my knowledge, there has never been a day when my readership from any city on Earth has exceeded four percent of my total. This pleases me because it indicates that this blog is sort of a global neighborhood onto itself. Speaking of which, Global Neighborhoods is not spiked as a couple of fictitious blog characters have written.  It is postponed.  I needed to get my consultng business going again and it is coming along nicely. But there will be a book and my return to serious work on it is not all that far away.

Google v. God, a competitive analysis

After my previous post, I started thinking a little more about the comparisons between Google and the perception many people have of God.  In closer examination, I have to conclude that Google comes out on top in at least five significant ways:

1. If you ask God for enlightenment, you may never get an answer.  Google gives you one in just a few seconds.

2.  God may or may not help those who help themselves. But Google helps those who blog and blog often. Posting three times a day is likely to give you more quantifiable results than praying three times a day.

3. People seem to get into trouble when they start thinking their god is better or more powerful than other people's gods. Google is even-handed.  it gives equally to all people who asks it the right question.

4. For an allegedly all-knowing being, some people seem to think it is important to flatter God all the time. Perhaps they think he/she/it is insecure. Google needs none of that. Like your mom and her homemade food, Google only requires that you visit now and then and you will be rewarded.

5. So far as I know, not a single person has ever been killed, or even assaulted, in Google's name.

I am the Lord thy Google and you will have no other returns before me.

Without even noting that both "God" and "Google," both begin with the same "Go" directive, Scott Baradell over at Media Orchard observes that these two infinite powers work in mysterious ways, each with apologists that will be quick to defend either.

Scott ran a simple test.  He sequentially typed in every letter in the alphabet to see, what results would come from each letter.  Ten times the results led with a Google page.  Second place was Wikipedia with five.  God never got the scoreboard. Perhaps he smote the Google spider before it could use its infinite algorithm to  retreve him.

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