Global Neighbourhoods

Andrew Reviews Naked Conversations

Andrew at Changing Way, another blog I enjoy immensely has given Naked Conversations another strongly positive review. Thank you, Andrew. You clearly put a good deal of thought into what you had to say.

One small point-- the book is available in 7-10 days, not one month from now.

Interested in Marketing? Read Being Reasonable

I had never heard of Marc Babej until shortly before he interviewed me a little while back, but I was impressed with his interview skills and the article that resulted. I have no special reason to link you to his Being Reasonable blog right now other than I immensely enjoy his original, useful and entertaining contributions to the general marketing conversation. I read him regularly and usually enjoy him a great deal.

So Funny, I bit My Tail

From Doc Searls comes the dumbest dog you'll ever see.

Richard Edelman Resolves to Link

Richard Edelman has posted a comment to my earlier posting complaining that he never linked to fellow bloggers. He wrote:

"Shel, you are right. I should have included a link to Suw's blog. No excuse other than that I was in a rush and on vacation in London with my family. Since I began my blog, I have focused on writing at least once a week and responding to every comment. My New Year's resolution is to join the conversation more regularly and to be sure to insert links in each of my blogs. I take your criticism constructively and hope that you, Trevor Cook and others will observe a change in 2006."

Richard, I'm happy you have taken this stand.  Some people thought I was too harsh in my previous posting, and for that I do apologize.  You also are aware that I have written about you favorably on this blog several times and most certainly in our book.

I've been hoping you would start linking actively ever since I interviewed you last May. When I saw your recent post on Suw, it was far from the first time I noticed you had skipped an obvious link and I saw red.  I should have been more prudent in tone, but the key point was that if you are going to really join the conversation--you must link.

Richard, your influence on influential and powerful people is important if blogging is to spread beyond its tech-domnated nexus. As a blogging evangelist, I care a great deal about what you blog and how you blog because of your indisputable influence on people who have never even heard of the likes f Scoble and Israel.

Thanks for the comment and your New Year's Resolution to start linking.  You do know that Trevor and I will be watching throughout 2006.

Juniper Sues Customer John Doe

Jeremiah over at Web Strategy points to some bizarre behavior by Juniper Networks who apparently is suing 10 anonymous chatters for saying unpleasant things about their user experience. In fact, they are filing the suit against that long-suffering citizen named John Doe. Suing people who claim to be unhappy customers seems to me to be more than a little lame.  Doing it at this time of year, makes yo appear to be downright boneheaded in terms of public and customer relations sensitivities.

10 More 2006 Predictions

I already made 10 predictions for 2006, all related to blogging. Here's 10 that are related to the rest of tech and other matters.  I know it's off-topic, but what-the-hell.  It's almost New Year's Eve.

1. By the end of the year, IPOs will once again be considered a desirable and realistic option for venture-backed startups.  However, they will need three consecutively profitable fiscal quarters before the market will be optimistic about them in the public sector.

2. Yahoo's stock will perform better by percentage than Google's. In fact, Google stock will tumble for a brief violent period before recovering.  John Battelle already made that prediction, but I want to be on record as saying "I knew that," before it actually happens.

3. There will be a serious and widely supported move to impeach George Bush.  It will fail to carry.  However, Republicans will gallop toward the political center, competing with each other to disavow they were now nor had they ever been supporters of his administration.

4. Dell will fall to third place or lower in personal computer sales. It will pull out of the low-end consumer market.

5. Ray Ozzie's position at Microsoft will be elevated. There will be serious editorial discussion of him taking the reins of the company.  Entrenched, powerful, longterm entities will do their very best to erode his position.

6. The Boston Red Sox will resurge to win the World Series, overcoming a 23-game deficit at the All Star break.

7. The residents of a smaller, more determined New Orleans will spawn the sort of building boom that citizens of San Francisco spawned after the great quake.  It will lead to a financial boom.  Government will have had almost nothing to do with it, but will take a great deal of credit for it.

8.  Using the Channel 9 model, corporate video blogging will emerge in popularity, but n one will even dust the tail of the original.

9. The technology issue most discussed will no longer be the blog, but open source and its impact or disappointment on technology development o all levels everywhere.

10. After DNA evidence reveals that a few more convicts, executed for murder, were innocent, American states will to put moratoriums on capital punishment.

Hitachi Preparing Blog Strategy

Robert blogged earlier that we were heading over to Hitachi Data Systems at the invitation of Jeremiah Owyang, who I met recently at Syndicate and Robert somehow encountered a couple of nights ago on the streets of San Francisco. We met also with the impressive, but unassuming Hu Yoshida who turned out to be one of those guys you just have to like.  He's the CTO and he says it should stand for Chief Traveling Officer because he spends most of his time hopping all over the place talking and listening to customers.

They invited us in to pick our brains as they work out a blog strategy.  We accepted the invitation because we were curious. Besides, most companies i talk with have fewer than 30 employees, so it was an honor of sorts to meet with a subsidiary of 3000 employees, that is part of a global organization of 300,000 employees.  Most of the companies I talk with are very Web 2.0.  These guys are the world leader in data center technology.

My assessment?  These guys get it big time. The two blogs I linked to above are just their first baby steps.  Jeremiah and Hu showed us they have the right stuff for blogging and for evangelizing it at Hitachi Data Systems. They are both transparent, authentic and demonstrated a fair amount of knowledge and passion. I didn't come to that conclusion by them making speeches or dreaded  PowerPoint presentations.  They simply revealed their thinking by the questions they asked which focused heavily n getting closer to customers and by using blogs to generate customer comments that would influence Hitachi developers.

This meeting has me juiced. The last time I spoke with a large enterprise representative--six months ago, she was concerned about negative comments, and if blogging was not just a passing fad, and why couldn't she just put a press release on a blog and what's the ROI anyway?

Hitachi was the second time in recent weeks where I've been impressed with how some large corporations are grasping the power of blogging as a conversational tool to get closer to customers.  Back at Syndicate, Scott Anderson , HP's director of enterprise brand communications gave a strong opening keynote address.  HP was not that sharp when we were writing Naked Conversations, and when we get around to a revised edition, we will have to retract what we said then, because they have come so far in a few short months.

This is important to Robert and me for reasons that are in part selfish.  Robert and I began Naked Conversations just over a year ago, when the enterprise was viewing blogging with disdain, salted with annoyance. Now, just two weeks before our Naked baby gets born, there's lots of evidence that we are timing publication into a sweet spot for corporate business thinkers.      

Gautum Gets iPod because they Can't Afford Vegas

Recruiting.com has awarded my friend Gautum Ghosh an iPod for his India-based recruiting blog.  It's sort of a convoluted tale, but the fact is that Gautum writes a consistently interesting blog on a subject tha does not generally interest me, because I am unlikely to ever want a job in Bangalore.

An ex-Employee Remembers Joe Nacchio

Martin Bronstine worked for Joe Nacchio before old Joe got himself indicted 42 times for insider trading. He left a comment on my previous post that I thought deserved the spotlight of its own post:

"As an ex US West/Qwest employee I hope Joe gets as fair a shake as he gave us. Just before he laid us off, he froze our ability to buy or sell our own stock because that would be insider trading and at the same time he received millions and millions of stock options for his great job building Qwest into the hole it found itself. He traded the stock the same day he got the option and made millions while we employees found our company stock drop to about $1 per share. To show how magnificent an employer he was, when he had us managers working 12 to 20 hours a day breaking the strike of the union employees, he gave us a bonus. He granted us 100 stock options at about $35 per share. Nice bargain when we could go down the street and buy them on the open market for about $1. Such a guy. The stress of the whole mess made me sick and because of that, Joe had me laid off. I haven’t been able to get a job now for 20 months. My 401 is all used up and I was forced to go into early retirement which pays me enough to pay my mortgage and have $30 left over for health insurance (which costs me over $2100 per month and runs out Jan 1st) buy all my drugs for my diabetes etc, purchase food and plan my vacation. I only hope Joe ends up in the same condition as I am in now He deserves nothing less or more. "

Thanks for sharing this Martin.  And may the New year bring you and Joe both the reversal of forunes you deserve.

Technorati Tags: JoeNacchio       

Opera Buys WHO?!?!!??

Imagine my surprise, when I read Kevin Burton's headline that Opera had purchased Riya for $150. It turns out he was singing the wrong note. Blake Ross had posted a very funny parody blog announcing that Opera had actually bought itself, out-bidding google, Microsoft and a Korean bakery. For me, it only became funny, when I realized that the usually accurate Kevin had really tripped it up this time.

Whew.

InformationWeek Honors Scoble

InformationWeek has named Robert Scoble one of 2005's Innovators of the Year . A wise and deserving choice if you ask me.

Don Thorsen on Lquid Marketing

Don Thorsen, a new blogger, met with Doc Searls recently and got inspired to write a pretty nteresting post about liquid marketing--the concept that marketing is a fluid, never-ending thing...

technorati tag: marketing

Stowe Boyd has a very thoughtfult piece about the significant implcations of tech.memeorandum, which has also been one of Robert's major anthems. Tech Memeorandum topically combines content from traditional and blog-based news sources onto a single sheet.  It is among the most transformational things to emerge in blogging since we completed the book, where we merely mentioned it in our Emerging Technology chapter. Today, it would be an entire section and in a short while, I imagine Tech Memorandum will be worth of a standalone chapter

For most of us, we don't care that much about the physical source of information.  We want the information and Tech Memeorandum accelerates the speed in which we can find what we want in tech--and I imagine, in just about everything else, moving forward.  However, it's efficiency may be bad news for link bloggers. Tech Memeorandum seems to do the job so much more efficiently.

A Fitting Brand Philosophy

I could spend many words espousing the infinite wisdom of Thomas Mahon to his partner Hugh MacLeod.  But the quote from Gaping Void says it all so much better:

"Tell the truth and the brand builds itself"

Pito Wonders about the Cost of Free

My friend Pito Salas wonders why all things Web 2.0 are free. He wonders if the inabilty to charge for innovation is discouraging the innovators. A good point. A very good point indeed.

Ben Says WOM is Most Influential to Sales

Word of Mouth (WOM) guru Ben McConnell points to a survey  a new MarketWire study that shows word-of-mouth is the most effective form of marketing of all forms including TV, coupons and newspapers. This applies to buyers in all age brackets. Glad to hear this from a credible source in my personal word-of-mouth food chain.

David Smalley-Tech Genius

My deep and heartfelt thanks to David Smalley, an advanced course student at the University of Leeds, who has run an IT department with employees in three countries. David had two suggestion for the tech anomaly headaches I was facing yesterday.

You may recall that my new X40 keyboard was skipping letters and that my Dell utility disk would not let me load my print drivers onto a non-Dell computer. David sent two tips and both worked. The driver one s a bit complicated, but he devised a way to work around the problem.  To solve my mystifying keyboard problems, he advised me to go to the Accessibility section of my Windows Control panel and turn all option on then off.

Both of these suggestions have worked.  I'm amazed and  am thankful.

I am also very impressed with what happened after I posted yesterday regarding IBM/Lenovo.  Within minutes, Todd Watson, who got me this Thinkpad, saw my posting and called from his mother's house where he is on Christmas Holiday.  he voiced a very high level of concern and said he would get some tech people on the case.  Two hours later another IBM representative called, getting my voicemail and leaving a message that e would put a tech support person on the case. Still later in the day Christne Freel, who handles executive relations for the president of Lenova in the US (I may have the titles botched a bit), called to talk with me about the problem.  We ended up chatting for a half hour and it became very human discussing the banana slug mascot at her alma mater college--UC Santa Cruz and what it's like to culturally transition from IBM to Lenova.

My month-long tech problems appear to be solved, but that's personal.  The bigger issue is just look at the role blogging has had in all this. I asked the blogosphere to solve two really odd problems, and within 24 hours David Smalley located in a school 5000 miles from where I sit gave me the answers. We don't know each other in real life and until he reached out, I had never heard of David, and didn't know he visited my blog.

As for the Thinkpad people at IBM & Lenova Three people called me within six hours, all f them in management level positions. That is just dazzling if you ask me. Compare that with what experiences I--and so many other people--have had with Dell and other companies, who block communications with unhappy customers, by websites, voice processing and now blogs.  I know where my loyalties lie and will remain for a very long time.

A few days ago Andrew Denny, very sincerely challenged whether it was appropriate for me to keep writing about this tech saga, particularly ranting about Dell, on this site. It made me think twice about what  have been doing. But my conclusion is that this sage has been entirely on spot.

Naked Conversations is about companies and customers getting closer together. It's about companies listening to unhappy customers and responding. It's also about the wisdom of crowds and David Smalley just showed how the combined wisdom of the blogosphere solves problems and finds answers with extreme efficiency.

Now, I have nothing more to say about tech problems. I just want to see the tools without hardly thinking about them, just like most people.

Edelman--The Missing Linker

I enjoy Richard Edelman's 6 a.m. blog and I admire the ethics he espouses in leading the world's largest PR firm. We had a great interview with him, then wrote favorably about him in Naked's Chapter on Direct Access.

But  find it appalling that he is ether too lazy or too self-centered to bother to link to other bloggers.  Most recently, he reports on having lunch with the UK's Suw Charman, one of England's top-ranked bloggers.  He doesn't even bother to link to her.

Any blogger soon learns that links are the blogophere's currency. Why is he so damned cheap?

Maryam--I feel your Pain!

Maryam Scoble has a really funny post about her troubles with notebook computers.  I feel her pain, but I'm not sure why she's complaining so much.  All keys on both her notebooks seem to work just fine.

Calling Tech Support--Help Me!

I thought my tales of computer woes were behind me.  Even I am getting bored with them. But I have two new problems and I can only blame one of them on Dell. Let's start with that one.

Problem #1: My new Thinkpad had no drivers for my old Dell Printer. No problem, I thought, so I put the utilities disk that came with the old Dell into my new Thinkpad, to download the driver.  The result? I got a message that that said something like, "This is not a Dell Computer and therefore we will not let you load the drivers Nyah. Nyah. Nyah."  So I went to the Dell website and tried to download the drivers from there. No dice. There has to be a workaround for this.  There just has to be or I have to buy a new printer, which does not thrill me at all.

Any suggestions?

Problem #2: This one scares me more. You ma recall how I lost my "I" on the Dell and even did a couple of posts using an "8" to replace it. Well the new Thinkpad, seems to be missing key strikes all over the place--although the "I" tends to work fine.  really, really, really don't want to have to send my new notebook back to IBM. Fr one thing, that would put me back on my %$#$#@ Dell. Somewhere n my dusty,aged memory bank I recall having this problem previously with a notebook computer, until one of my good techie friends sat down and did one of those quick, magical things that techies sometimes do.

Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Please help me. I'll be your friend forever. I promise.

Evelyn Returns to Phuket

Scoble pointed me to Evelyn Rodriquez blog for the first time, almost one year ago today. Actually, it was Dec, 27, the day after the tsunami hit the beach at Phuket, killing many, including someone I knew. I think it was the most moving series of posts I had ever read. It made me aware that blogging is at its very best in times of human crisis. It lowered by a notch, the relevance of blogging as a business tool.

Evelyn is also one of the best writers I know.

She has returned to Thailand and South Asia and is blogging about her experiences  and visits with people she is seeing one year later  his is not morbid stuff.  It is upbeat ad filled with hope for the human condition. Go read it.

technorati tags:  Phuket, Tsunami, evelynrodriquez

Meeting Old Friends for the First Time

I first became aware of Shel Holtz shortly after I started blogging.  He sent me a nice email note, suggesting nicely that I stop signing my comments just "Shel" because there were two of us and it would avoid confusion.  Reluctantly, I complied.

Over time, I became much more aware of Shel Holtz, particularly after he and Neville Hobson started podcasting.  I have to say their coverage of people and matters loosely joined to communications and PR is my personal favorite.  I find them both thoughtful and constructive in what they have to say.

But this all started more than a year ago--a century in blogosphere time. And while, over that year Shel became a friend.  I came to know him better and more closely through blogging--we had never met, not until a couple of days ago, when we got together for lunch in San Francisco.

It is the strangest thing, and if you bog for a while, you'll know what I'm talking about. Yo build these trusting friendships, with people you have never met face to face. The you actually meet.  In recent months, I've met face-to-face with Shel, Neville, Evelyn Rodriquez, Tom Raftery, Hugh MacLeod, Loic Le Meur and quite a few others.  I considered each of these guys to be old friends before I ever laid eyes on them.

It is the strangest thing. I really like it.

One More Thought on the New Book

I'm looking for company stories that have essentially not been told yet.  I love the start up stories of Skype, Six Apart, Activewords, ICQ, Mrs.Fields and young Hewlett and Packard in their garage.  But I'm looking for new, great untold stories, ones revealing conflict, disruption, wild success, dramatic failure--all the juicy stuff we writers suck into.

From these stories, I'll need to see useful stuff for entrepreneurs to use. but they need to be great untold stories for this new book.

Help me if you can.  Self-nomination is just fine.

New Thoughts on My New Book

A while ago, I posted a piece about my next book, which remains a little ways ff while Robert and I focus on Naked Conversations. I plan to write about startup companies, looking at what characteristics have remained the same and what have changed with the times.

I developed the though  a little further. I'd like to find 12 start up companies and develop their stories, and through them, tell what I've learned over my career working with them.

One company I most certainly will cover will be Riya.  There's is already an interesting saga, and by 2007 when I hope to complete my next book, I think a great deal will happen worth writing about.

That leaves 11 open slots.  I'd like to have companies that are from all over the world, some of whom are not in technology. They do not have to still be startups today. One or two could even be large or even public. But their story of getting started needs to be truly compelling, and t needs to contain points of value to people who are thinking of starting, or will have recently started, their own companies.

I definitely want to speak to people who were part f a spectacular failure. I'd like to talk to them about the lessons learned and what happened in their lives after it was all over.

Like Naked Conversations, this book will be written transparently, in collaboration with the blogosphere, starting now.  If I can figure out a way to use blogging to make the book even more transparent than Naked has been, then I will do so.  Maye I'll profile 25 companies and have you vote on who should go into the book and why.

If you know of a company that I should investigated for this new book, please let me know now. I plan to write a proposal in February and start writing in March.

Joe Nacchio Indicted 42 Times

Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio was indicted a little while ago on 42 counts of insider trading.  This is a story that bloggers broke during a PC Forum conference where Nacchio was speaking, touting the great potential of his stock to a room filled with tech industry elite.

Buzz Bruggeman, at home in Florida, hopped on the Intenet and quickly uncovered that this stock hawker had been quietly dumping his own shares even as he encouraged others to invest. He emailed that info to a couple of prominent blggers. Dan Gillmor and Doc Searls immediately blogged about it as Nacchio continued talking.  As we recount in Naked Conversations, host-producer Esther Dyson recalled, "at that time the room seemed to turn decidedly hostile."

h

Technorati tag: Joe Nacchio

Wal-Mart Investigated for Illegal hazardous Waste Transport

Reuters reports that Wal-Mart is under investigation for illegal transport of hazardous waste material. A while ago I suggested that Wal-Mart should begin an authentic blog.  I take it back.  These guys have way too much to hide for any kind of transparent dialogue.

technorati tag; Wal-Mart, Walmart

Meryl Likes Naked Conversations

Content Maven Meryl as given Naked Conversations yet another favorable review, although she feels we could have expanded a bit on who should not blog.

According to Meryl, "The book has an easy to read and understand writing style so anyone who barely knows anything about blogging will be able to grasp it. The authors clearly point out the dos and don’ts when blogging. Not only do they cover how to blog, but also how to get involved in the conversations instead of doing things one-way (always talking and never listening). "

Thanks, Meryl

Tara is Quite a Geek

I spent a few wonderful hours over at Riya where the energy is as good as I've seen it. Everyone is focused on launching into beta in February.  The company is like a boat, moving away from distractions that were left on the dock and are now setting a course for new destinations.

Tara and I spent some time together with her showing me things to come. I don't think I fully grasped how adept she is at Geekdom.  We were on Technorati for a second and before my eyes focused fully on the page, she pointed out a couple of things I had never noticed there.

But the big hot was she showed me the new User Interface which is all nifty with Ajax technology and incredibly improved from what you folks out there have seen so far. The surprise is that Tara, a marketing-blogging-personal networking superstar has designed the new UI.  She has done a Hell of a job and I can't wait for the world to see it.

CES Blogger Dinner

Robert and I will be speaking to a small group of book buyers at CES on Feb 7. We would love to have a blogger dinner.  We may even be able to have the first handful of the book with us--for sale at a discount.  We are not yet sure.

We also need someone to suggest a good venue for the unruly mob we hope will join us.  If any of you are local or know the area well, please let us know. We'll buy you dinner if you coordinate with the restaurant and give you a free autographed copy of the book.

To register please just leave a comment.

Riya Sets an Independent Course

Munjal Shah, Scoble, and Michael Arrington have been busy tonight making clear that if there had been discussions with Google, it has not culminated in a deal.  Munjal makes pretty clear that the company plans to launch its technology at Demo Feb. 6-8. Robert also disclosed that Microsoft had also talked with Riya, and had some comparable technology cloistered somewhere in the back room that may have caused Redmond to adopt a Not Invented Here (NIH) attitude.

I may be the only one who thinks that maybe the way it came out is not such a bad thing for Riya.  Okay, the founders would have done quite well at an early phase.  As a consultant, I stood to receive a nice little taste myself.  But there are some advantages to going it alone. It allows the exploration of other options down the line. In this post-bubble era, three companies have emerged to represent the Big Three.  And if every Web 2.0 startup has the same exit strategy, then all the controls are in the hands of these three companies.

The concept of going it alone, building customer and revenue bases, maybe turning a few quarters of profit then going public seems all but forgotten.  This at a time, when everywhere I turn, there are these really brilliant, really promising young companies.  Who would be so brash as to consider such a crazy concept?  Well, Google comes to mind. They were the last dotcom company.  They were just another Internet search company.  And look what happened. Going public has its benefits.

I'm not saying that's Riya's destiny.  I am saying they have some of the most remarkable technology I've seen. They solve a problem that millions and millions of people know they have. It's been a while since I've been able to help a company build something. There's an urgency about it that I love.

Why such an urgency?  Because if Google an Microsoft chose not to buy Riya, somewhere in the bellies of those companies are some developers who think they can do better on their own. Maybe they can.  but Riya has a head start and a small company with a head start on popular, complicated technology is more disruptive than bloated incumbents realize.  That point is at the core of the tech industry's history.

I think Riya has a very valuable headstart. They have a brilliant, focused team.  Building a company from zero to greatness is hard work.  You are always pushing rocks up the hill.

It's also the most glorious experience.

The next step in Riya's story Will take place on the Dais of Demo, where the Palm OS and so many other disruptive products started. They get six minutes to tell their story to 750 of the world's most passionate and knowledgeable technology players.

I have high confidence they will emerge a more valuable company from the experience.

Larry Weber Talks Social Web at Syndicate

I was impressed by Larry Weber's talk last week at Syndicate.  Like Richard Edelman, his roots are in traditional PR where--like Edelman--he achieved guru status. Like Edelman, he understands the fundamental disruption being caused by the emergence of social media. But unlike Edelman, he has not yet started his own blog, and both Weber and the blogosphere are the worst for that, because Weber has a lot to say and its good stuff.

In his post-lunch keynote, Weber described the emergence of a "social web," where the stronger the dialog is, the stronger the brand becomes. But before professionals understand and achieve the changes fomented by the Social Web, "marketing will get harder before it gets easier." Right now he said, "it's pandemonium." While in the old days of last decade, the enterprise generated press releases, which went to the press, who wrote about companies it is all changing.  We are now, he said "in a new Era of enterprise-generated media," where content is developed and delivered via the Internet t audiences who can now talk back." In evolution, it has all just begun. "We are only up to those slimy creatures, just coming out of the ocean," he quipped.

What are the differences? Quite a few.  In the social web, you don't need press releases, collateral marketing or media tours.  Just throw a party, but make certain it's a really good party that people will talk and blog about. He said that in the new Social Web era, "Opinions shape marketing.  Marketing does not shape opinions."

He also argued that the marketing's obsessive need for quantifiable demographic information had become obsolete. "We are so used to controlling everything and it will be difficult to make the change.  Retailers know that the longer you are in the store the better off they are." He's tired of CEOs saying the need measurement.  "You can’t just throw something out and measure it.  We are in a period of adjustment." Later, he added, "Companies don't need to know everything about you.  They just need to know what we want from them."

Dialog drives the brand," he argued. "You've got to be transparent. You've just got to be."

He advised the audience made up mostly of traditional corporate and agency marketing executives, " to tap the power of citizen journalism as wacky as it can be." He said, " instead of GM telling me how great the car is I want to hear from customers who bought the car."

He also talked about the need for traditional media to understand that the future of publishing is blogging. He argued that they need to understand that the need to move everything from paper to digital. The loyalty of customers is not to the paper, but to the content he contended and digital is more efficient in ever way.

I go to a lot of conferences and cover an awful lo of speakers. I also spend a good deal of time struggling to convey some of the same thoughts that Larry Weber articulated so well.  For me his was among the most memorable presentations I've heard in recent memory.

technorati tags: http://technorati/tag/syndicatesf http://technorati/tag/larryweber

Jeremiah Likes Naked

I met Jeremiah Owyang last week at Syndicate and ave him one of the few remaining Galley copies of the book.  I thought it was important because he is very much the target reader for the book, as opposed to the many blogging pioneers and insiders who have been so kind to Naked so far. Jeremiah describes why on his blog, and he confirms the book would be valuable to him in his role a Hitachi Data Systems. Would this be a tacky time, Jeremiah to mention that we can arrange volume discounts for corporate sales?

Welcome ThinkPad. Seriously

Goodbye Dell. I'm leaving Hell. Hello ThinkPad I think this could be the beginning of a great relationship.

It took a week longer than it was supposed to, to get my new, elegant, lightweight, ThinkPad in a great deal that my friend (Turbo)Todd Watson at IBM arranged for me.  The delay was not IBM's fault, but mine for not abandoning personal hygienic chores while waiting for UPS to deliver this little bundle of joy, forgetting that when I’m waiting for an important delivery, I should ignore all hygienic functions. I got up at 4 this morning and started playing with it. 

The first thing I noticed was that side-by-side with my cursed Dell, the screen resolution was vastly superior. Second, having opted for the 3-lb., 12.1 screen X40, I was concened that my Neanderthal two-finger typing methods would be a proble. It isn’t. The keyboard is solid, responsive and relatively silent even, for someone like me who uses a clumsy, manic system if typing, which was obviously sufficiently manic to destroy a Dell.

But anyone who knws me, will tell you I'm no roduct reviewer.  I'm an end user champion not a geek who understands the innards. Hell, I'm still not certain just how voices travel on a telephone.

But I have faith in my new computer, because people I know who have had one before me, recommend the product and they do it with assion and authority.  When Todd encouraged me to do a deal through him, I was pretty sure he was more interested in doing me a favor than the company.

In the back channel earlier today, Andrew Denny epressed some concern that my acelerating rants against Dell were taking me off course from the Naked Conversations focus. I've been pondering that for a few hors and I just don't think it's true. Naked is about conversations that move the power out into the rightful hands of customers in the marketplace.  The saga of my migration from Dell to ThinkPad is an dynamic case study of word of mouth in action. These postings are an amplification of the conversations, or so it seems to me.

Meanwhile, thanks Todd. I am so happy with my ThinkPad, that, here’s another link. Hell, have another.

Naked Conversations Pre-Order Snafu

I'm beginning to yearn for those two tin cans on a string that we depict on the Naked Conversations book jacket. I finally got my ThinkPad, and I'll try to recontsruct the one I lost when TypePad melted down in the early morning hours today.

But then I received a very important email from  Alan Weinkrantz, who alerted us to a problem that anyone who has pre-ordered Naked Conversations from Amazon.com could very well be facing. Apparently, when you pre-ordered, Amazon sent you an email that essentially said that the book was out of stock and to let them know if you still wanted them to send it when the book becomes available (approximately Jan.10).

If you just ignored that Amazon e-note, assuming it was a standard confirmation, then they cancelled your order. I had sent a couple of pre-orders as gifts myself, and mine got cancelled so I know how easy this was. It should not have hapopened this way and there are lots of pages of explanation to it, something to do with a data feed problem, but that's not the important thing.  The important thing is that you may think you have Naked Conversations on order and you haven't.

Here's the not-so-easy fix:

• Look for the Amazon "do you want to cancel your order" email. Open it and respond.
• If you are unsure whether or not you have Naked on order, just check your account at Amazon and in the shopping cart area, it will tell you if the book is on order.
• If it isn't, then you'll have to reorder. I'm sorry.  There are a few red faces involved in this.
• Im not sure if when you reorder, you'll get the same email--or if the problem has beenn fixed--but if you get that email, please respond that you want to receive the book.

Alan, thanks to you big time. We have been very aware of a mismatch between the number of people who told us they had ordered the book and the number of orders that Amazon was showing us.

Ain't technology grand? Those two tin cans were pretty reliable when I was a kid, but then they don't have the range of Skype.

David Berlind Covers Jonathan Schwartz

I was sitting between Dan Farber and David Berlind the two Between the Lines masters at Syndicate this morning when Jonathan Schwartz was interviewed by Doc Searls. I took notes like crazy in order to blog about it. But Berlind did such a masterful job of Live Blogging it, all I need to do is link to him to give you the entire story.

technorati tag: http://technorati/tags/syndicatesf

The Dangers of Saying Bad Things About Dell

You may recall that a while back I reported that I had lost the "I" key on my Dell Inspiron 600 m keyboard and needed to press several times on the squishy rubber thigamabob (you geeks know what that means) that was located where my "I" used to be.

I've been waiting for my new ThinkPad, which I thought would have been here a week ago, but there were some UPS snags. It is now scheduled to arrive tomorrow afternoon. 

But that's not why I write.  Instead, I wish to share with you the continuing saga of a computer as it slowly disintegrates. Mind you, that until I wrote the reasons why I would never buy another Dell a couple months back, --my Inspiron 600m worked just fine.

Since then, I've come to believe in the existence of mean-spirited Dell demons working in concert against me.  Here are a few of the lowlights of what has happened in the last four weeks with my Dell:

• The battery had worked fine. Just fine. Two days after my "I " fell off, it died. It went from holding a charge from 3.5-4 hours down to just 20-minutes.
• I have a USB Hub on my desktop, with four peripherals plugged in.  When I plug the Hub into the Dell, I hear four ding-ding sounds for the peripherals as I should. But then the ding-dings continue randomly.  Sometimes it sounds like a Salvation Army Santa Claus is ringing a bell inside my Dell.
• The bottom plate that covers my DRAM SIMMs fell off the computer.  I thought it would just require a tiny screw driver to fix.  But no, it turns out that the screw holes in the form had stripped out. The problem is in the form itself, not in the screws themselves.
• Today, I went to print a check in my Quicken and I could not get my menus to stay open so that I could click on "Print." I know this sounds like a software problem, but but somehow, I suspect Dell is behind this as well.
• If you squeeze on the Dell palm plate to the left of the Touchpad, there's an audible squeak. If you squeeze to the right there a slight click. Neither gives sound enhances my confidence.
• A close inspection of the surviving keys on my pad reveal that the paint on the left "Shift" key, as well as the "A" "S" & "D" have pretty much worn off. I should not complain. At least these keys remain connected to the keyboard.
• The rubber doo-hickey that keeps the power cord wrapped around the voltage brick, when traveling broke off, but now I'm just being overly picky.

In case you are wondering how I am writing this now, I went out a few days ago and bought myself and external Dynex USB keyboard at Best Buy for $29.  It works quite well.  I would have schlepped it to the Syndicate Conference where I was dying to live blog, but the keyboard sounds louder than my old Underwood 018 manual typewriter that I bought in a pawnshop when I was 14 and still keep in my garage. Also, it's impossible to use a full sized keyboard with a notebook on my lap, at least it has been since I lost some weight. There were tables at the conference, but I needed to stay near power sockets, because the **&%^$$ battery only had 20 minutes of life in it.

I've missed blogging at two conferences in two weeks. Ive been sending emails to people from these conferences using an "8" whenever I needed an "I," as someone had suggested this. then do a universal replace.  That worked for a while, but then the rubber doo-hickey dried up and I could not squeeze anymore I's out for a universal replace. You can't just paste an I in on Word Search and Replace, or so I have learned. I was typing 8s to a bunch of people in a panel talk this afternoon, when one of the speakers mentioned how unprofessional typos appear. I thought: "Gr8!"

Summary: I really hope my ThinkPad comes in tomorrow. Goodbye Dell.  I promise not to write anything more bad about you.  You guys play really rough.

Doc Searls Ties One On

Just back from a great day at Syndicate, where most everyone else is starting to Rock at a Yahoo! reception. I needed to tend to some business. It is a good conference and I'll write more expansively about it when I catch my breath, but I saw something today that I never thought I would see--Doc Searls, in the role of host-producer.  That's not the news.  The news is that he was in blue blazer and red tie. I never thought I'd live to see the day.

That's the headline.  I'll be back with a report on Larry Weber's great talk when I catch my breath.

Todd Tweedy Launches Boldmouth.com

Todd Tweedy has launched Boldmouth.com a new word of mouth (WOM)marketing services consultancy that differentiates WOM from Buzz marketing by virtue of the former being authentic and the latter being contrived.

Todd says his new firm will recognize customer interests and use them to attempt to "create word-of-mouth moments. "

Real word-of-mouth marketing is about sharing advice as well as product and service recommendations. These informal and typically person-to-person dialogs should not to be confused with “buzz marketing” that is nothing more than an attempt to artificially engineer a referral by offering incentives so that “agents” make recommendations on behalf of an organization. Buzz marketing companies don’t create buzz. People that are interested in a product or service create ‘buzz’ using word of mouth,”  said Todd.

I've known Todd slightly for a long time and I trust him.  It will be interesting to watch how his new enterprise emerges.  I have long struggled to keep words like viral and buzz out of what I've had to say about conversational marketing, because they are still attempts of companies to push into customer behavior.  Word of Mouth to me, works bets when the customer becomes the company champion on his or her own volition.

Word of Mouth Makes a Best Seller

From Jackie Huba comes this tale of how a public book reading made a best selling children's book for this holiday.  It's the kind of story that brings joy and hope to my heart this particular year.

Les Blogs--A Personal Apology

Well it had to happen sooner or later.  Since the Naked Conversations project began, Robert and I have receive almost nothing but kudos.  We knew that could not go on forever.  Sooner or later we had to screw up.  Too bad we did it in front of 350 respected bloggers from more than 20 countries.

For our opening keynote at Les Blogs, the audience and its producers were expecting a great deal from Robert and me and we were embarrassingly ill-prepared.  We have lots of excuses, but they don't matter.  The reviews such as you can read here, here and here were not nasty. They just express disappointment in us.

This was our first joint appearance and we could have done much, much better.  The audience deserved it of us and if we had set a better tone from the outset, the entire conference might have taken off with a great deal more positive energy.

I cannot speak for Robert because he is in the air right now, but I'm pretty certain he shares the views I'm expressing here.  This experience reminds me of when we started the book-writing project.  It took us a while for us to find our stride. But once we did, we really steamed. Robert and I need to spend more time together. We need to get better fast and we will.

To those of you whom we disappointed at Les Blogs, all we can do is apologize and tell you we will try to do better next time. A lot better.

Question to the World #12--Remarkable

This post also belongs on my other site.  You can find it here.

What Should We Ask the World?

This post belongs on my other blog.  I did not take it down, but I did move it over to here.

Yahoo Buys Del.Icio. us

Gary Price over at Search Engine Watch reports that Yahoo has bought del.icio.us. That is a very nice play for Yahoo and I would guess a coup for it over other giants who more and more the best way for them to offer innovation is to buy startups.

Web Spikes International BusinessWeek

Co-authors Tomi T. Ahonen and Alan Moore have a very nice book blog for their Communities Dominate Brand. Tomi has posted that the European hardcopy version of BusinessWeek is being spiked. Reason: web traffic is up, but the paper book's is down.

This is not the first time something like this has occurred and I'm pretty sure it won't be the last.

Harvard Business Review to Review Naked

There are times when we just love traditional marketing efforts and this is one of them. Wiley's PR team has informed us that, for better or worse, the prestigious Harvard Business Review (HBR) will be reviewing Naked Conversations in their March issue, which comes out we imagine in mid-February.

This is a big hit for us.  HBR is asked to review just about every business book that gets published, and to be selected is considered an honor. Whether it is favorable, tepid or very negative, we will link to it when it comes out.

technorati tag: Naked Conversations

Blogging Whoppers in Amsterdam

Six Apart's multilingual blogger Maarten Schenk pointed Robert to a Burger King owner just outside of Amsterdam who has started this blog. We tried two translating programs on it, but couldn't make out much more than a mention of Walt Disney Studios--but we are sure you'll get the point.

What's exciting to me, is that blogging is moving well beyond it's core in the development community.  It is pervading all sorts of businesses and markets in all sorts of places.

Talking Trash at Les Blogs

If you followed the very recent Les Blogs conference, you have already read coverage of the fracas between Six Apart founder Mena Trott and BBC Backstage's co-project lead Ben Metcalfe and the issue of a backchannel live chat that was posted on the screen behind speakers as they presented. It involved a call for civilityand some interchanges generally regarded as less than civil by both central participants.

                                                                                                                                                            I I was in an apparent minority, taking Mena’s side during the debate and I remain there now. Let me tell you my personal experience, which impacts my view:

Robert and l got off to a slow start in our own presentation the preceding day much to both our disappointments.  About three minutes into a 45 minute presentation, I turned to the huge screens behind us where Loic Le Meur, the  host-producer was showing the back channel conversation as Robert and I struggled to find our stride.

“YAWN. This is boring,” were the first words that caught my eye.  The author was hiding behind an alias. This did not seem to me to be in any way constructive. It certainly did not make it easier for Robert and me to find our stride.  I cannot conceive of any way this was helpful to the audience either. Over the rest of the day, as other speakers presented, the negative commentary continued.  People who were not speakers continued to upstage speakers with this ongoing, overwhelmingly negative and snarky chat.

Tara Hunt, my Riya colleague, saw it otherwise. She wrote that she sees disrupting speakers via the back channel part of some wonderfully “magical extra layer.” My view is very different.  I see it more like attending an art exhibit in which you are permitted to deface serious endeavors with spray paint if you do not like them.

At the break, Ben Metcalfe approached me for a word. I was pretty much prepared to go toe-to-toe with him, but I ended up liking him more than I had expected I would. He mostly talked and I mostly listened.  He established that he was not just some kid passing nasty notes in the back of the classroom, but a contributing member of the blogosphere.  It turned out I was familiar with some of his work, and admired it.

He also made a couple of other good points. He told me that he was 24 years old and wanted to know if when I was his age, had I executed the levels of respect that I would now have him display. When I was 24, I told him, I was trying to tear down the US government, I told him. However, I later reflected, my government was trying to put me in uniform and fight in a war that I considered a lot more offensive than a mediocre speech. And when Mena Trott was 24, she was co-starting a company that has changed the world.

But Ben's second point is the one that has stuck with me. He said that at conferences he attends, the back channel is used and enjoyed by significant percentages of the audience.  They do this sort of thing all of the time. The difference is that at Les Blogs, they posted it on the screen while at others they did, well-in the back channel where the audience was not forced to watch it.

It seems to me, that came back to what had been Mena Trott’s central point before she blew her cool and got into a name-calling duel.  We should be more civil, when we are speaking about others in public. When we publish comments we should get our facts straight because those facts last a very long time through searches. People should speak online as they do when they meet you face-to-face.

But Ben's key point was valid it seems to me.  This chat stuff is part of free speech and those who enjoy it should certainly snark away. But, why on Earth it was being published tp upstage of  each speaker remains beyond me.  Even if it were favorable commentary, posting it behind the speakers is a visual distraction.  And for a speaker to see what is being said about him or her, she or he has to turn their back to the audience.

The incident would never have happened and people would be talking today about the mastery of Ben Hammersley’s eloquence, and Global Voices vision than about this molehill that has become a mountain.

Technorati tag: lesblogs

         

Barnes & Noble Taking orders for Naked Conversations

Barnes and Noble is now taking orders for Naked Conversations. We will post an icon link for them as soon as we get out of Dell Hell.

"Microsoft." The first word in Paris?

Paula and I arrived in Paris after a Hellish arrival.  We get to our hotel the Marriott Renaissance, just outside of central Paris, where we can enjoy some luxury as we burn 100,000 Marriott Points. The reception at the desk is warm, the hotel staff charming.

The first voice we hear is not French however.  It is clearly American and the first word, we hear is "Microsoft." We've just travel led 5445 miles overnight to hear some guy talking in the lobby and saying a word, we seem to hear where ever we are. Microsoft is like oxygen. It's everywhere and if you breath you take in both.

Turns out the hotel is next door to Microsoft France Headquarters and this guy (never got his name) is one of their mucky mucks. I ask him if he know Robert Scoble and he says of course.  Says he reads Scoble every day and that he thinks he is doing a great job for Microsoft, "showing we're real people."

I tell him I co-authored a book with Scoble, and that Robert and his wife will be meeting up with me and my wife to celebrate our book and that we are speaking at Les Blogs about our book Naked Conversations.

He's heard of neither, but as he steps off the elevator, he tells me to say hi to Robert for him. He's never met him, but he feels like he knows him. I tell him a lot of people feel that way as the door closes.