Global Neighbourhoods

TJ Kuhn starts blog on Pharmacuetical QA

I can't tell you how many times I've been told how the pharmaceutical industry will never allow blogging and social media.  It is the conventional wisdom that the pharmas are too uptight, to regulated, too private, too insensitive to blog.

So when my morning ego feed found a post by TJ Kuhn, called GxP, good practice from the quality assurance perspective, saying that the talking version of Naked Conversations helped get it started, I felt downright proud.

TJ has just put up his first post. I hope some of you will visit and will leave a few suggestions on how to get it going. I think he has already made a good start.


Technorati Tags: TJ Kuhn

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Cubic's MaxRoam goes free. Save a bundle on International Calling

My friend Pat Phelan has announced that his MaxRoam Service is now available worldwide. This is the SIM, phone and service I helped Cublic Telecom announce at TC40.  The secret sauce lets you program 50 local phone numbers onto one SIM chip, meaning you can send and receive local calls from 50 countries on one phone.

Pat says that international travelers can save over 90% on their current extortionary Roaming charges.

This announcement comes just as rumors abound that Apple Computer's new upgrade will turn your iPhone into an iBrick if you unlock them an insert a MaxRoam chip in it.  Apple says such an act will cause irreparable damage. The damage is to AT&T rip off charges, not to the phone.

Pat has a simple solution. Don't upgrade.

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SAP Global Survey: Chile's Juan Pablo Tapia

            [Chile's Juan Pablo Tapia. From his Photo File]

Juan Pablo Tapia, is a senior consultant in strategic communications, serving as a Projects Manager at Crisis ICC , a communications firm. He's also a professor of Strategic Communication at University Pacifico and UAH where, he tells me, he has "incorporated contents about the Social Media whenever I can."  Additionally, he is co-founder of the Civic NGO responsible for implementing TimeBanks in Chile. His personal blog, is a venue he told me "where I collect Typos." Juan and I share something in common on that one.

I hope you read it through, ir at least skip to the end, where Juan Pablo tells me the best case I have yet heard on social media changing government behavior. 

1. Tell me about your country.  How big, how populated, major industries, quality of life, education, etc.

According to Wikipedia, Chile is the world's 38th-largest country. It is comparable to about twice the size of Norway. Chile's 2002 census reported a population of 15,116,435. Its growth has been declining since the early 1990s, because of a decreasing birth rate. About 85% of the country's population lives in urban areas, with 40% living in Santiago, our capital.

We have a dynamic market-oriented economy characterized by a high level of foreign trade. In 2006, Chile became the country with the highest nominal GDP per capita in Latin America. Even though the exceptional Chilean economic results, the Chilean economy income distribution has been extremely poor. Chile ranks 80th among the countries on the list of income distribution, being the fourth in Latin America and ranking behind much poorer African countries such as Zambia, Nigeria and Malawi.

Chile has signed free trade agreements (FTAs) with a whole network of countries, including an FTA with the United States, signed in 2003. Over the last several years, Chile has signed FTAs with the European Union, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, China and recently Japan.

We Chileans call our country país de poetas—land of poets. Gabriela Mistral was the first Chilean to win a Nobel Prize for literature (1945). Chile's most famous poet, however, is Pablo Neruda who also won the Nobel Prize in 1971.

2.  Tell me about yourself.  What do you do? When did you first get involved
in social media and why? What tools do you use and why? How has social media changed your life?

I define myself as a guy with the desire to learn and to make things in different scopes and Social Media is sure one of the most important.

The first time that I became jumbled with the Social Media was around 3 years ago, thanks to one of the first blog I've ever read ( www.leoprieto.com) made by a friend who is one of the refering ones of this subject in Chile. From that minute, the potentiality of being able to have conversations, virtually with any person in this world, hallucinated me; and even more, there were registries of those dialogs. To understand the phenomenon like a conversation is clearly thanks to you Shel and to your first book. Lately, that power to generate " responsible conversations between participants",  has interested me more from the point of view of the impact in the corporative communication.

At present I maintain two blogs juanpablotapia and bancodeltiempo One is in Wordpress and the other in Blogger. I use Google Analytics to evaluate both in terms of performance and impact. Also I have incorporated 2.0 tools like Podamatic, Slideshare and Scricblike to make them more attractive and to share different types of content. I use RSS for reading and Bloglines and Firefox. My Social Bookmarks are managed mainly by Del.icio.us.

Lately, I've been giving more attention to Facebook and Linked In because of their great potential for creating international and professional networks.  Finally, I maintain my accounts in YouTube, iGoogle, Flickr and others for active video and images.

I use Slide to share my classes with my students and my mindmaps are build on Bubbl, etc. I have a Myspace site to meet and inform me about new groups of music. Recently, I have incorporated Twitter and WIXI on my "software to evaluate's" list.

I am on a permanent search for new tools that allow me to handle the infinite information available at present. So yes, social media has changed my life within the last few years.

3. Do you use social media for your work? How and why?

I use social media practically the whole day at work.

Some projects are developed collaboratively and I use Google Docs, the videos I use for my presentations are on YouTube. When I'm searching for referral information I dig for it on Technorati, Alexa, and others. I believe strongly that the Chilean corporate communications industry still has a passive attitude in respect to this subject.

4. Now, tell me about technology in Chile.  How many people have cell phones and/or computers? How many connect to the internet?  Where and how do they do it?

Chile has the most technological development of Latin America. According to ISI 2007, in the first quarter of 2007, the Chileans spent an average of $532 USD per person in information technology. According to WIP, in Chile, Internet's primary users are children and teenagers from 6 to 17 years old followed by young men age 18 to 29, mainly from the high half of high socioeconomic sectors.

Personally, I believe these figures are not exactly accurate. In the poorest neighborhoods, we can observe a notorious amount of Cybercafés, with plenty of young men using them mainly for playing games on line, instead of doing homework. Whatever they use them for, it is a good first step. The laptops prices have been falling lately and that, added to such TIC projects as Chileaprende from the Ministry of Education's and Pais Digital Foundation , prepare a positive stage for the upcoming world of digital culture and social media.

5.  Talk to me about young people.  Are they more involved in social media than older people? What tools do they like most and why?

There is no doubt that young Chilean people are taking great strides in adopting social media. The Fotologs, for example, had experienced an explosive growth in the last years. According to  the consulting firm Divergent. On Fotolog, Chile surpasses bigger Latin American countries like Mexico, Brazil and Argentina in the number of registered Avatars. Thirty-four of 100 Fotologs worldwide are Chilean. Three million Chileans, or 20% of the population has one.

The new technologies also have allowed many young people to access information that  define themselves in terms of cultural identity: the great amount of urban tribes, organized and with access, have their own places on the Web, which is a clear sign of upcoming communities and grassroots initiatives.

Lately, teenage students have marked a tendency in the use of YouTube.  This has received public attention, because students have uploaded and shared videos of bullying in classrooms, which has been followed by media repercussions. Another recent case that reveals the phenomenon of massive repercussion was the Fotolog of an anorexic young girl, who, via fotolog, revealed the crude advance of her disease. Fotologs and blogs have had considerable growth in last years. The Chilean "blogósfera" is acquiring an important level of participation, specificity and reputation from formal media and authorities, and has helped increase the impact of collective initiatives.

Older people are just discovering the potential. In my opinion, they have a reluctance to participate in the conversations generated on the multiple platforms of social communication or Planet 2.0, as a young and prominent Chilean author defined it. Older people are taking their first baby steps on new technologies but they feel crushed by the amount of new global content and participation. Who doesn't?

6. Is business embracing social media tools? If so, in for what purposes? If not, why not?

With few exceptions,, the Chilean businessmen still don't realize the enormous potential to generate commitments and productive conversations with all stakeholders through the social media.

Some have begun using social media tools inside their organization. VTR  and others have included/understood the potential of tourism online 2,0, like the tour agency Cocha . But we have a long way to go. Chile is a fertile land for the social media from a corporate and institutional perspective.

Government employs RSS in some official sites and a pair of ministries upload YouTube videos. But overall, it has not been able to visualize the potential of the SM to generate a greater socialization of their public policies for a citizen participation according the present times. The actual government has not included/understood the necessity to define a digital agenda responding the needs of the Chilean reality.

We Chileans used Second Life to celebrate our National Day and the state TV channel used it to launch its new Soap Opera, but in my opinion these are only incipient attempts.

7. How--if at all-- do you think social media will impact business over the next five years?  What about Chile in general?

Social Media means collaboration and communication.

If you allow me to reduce its meaning, then, I believe it will happen here, as well as anywhere. I see a renaissance of marketing and the formation of spontaneous citizen movements as well as strategically developed campaigns. Chilean CEOs and business leaders will come to recognize that these tools will have a strong development and even a greater growth. On the top of their to do lists, must be to understand social media and strategically use them to communicate with clients and their communities.

But Chile is and always has been a tech lab. Then, it is to hope that, for the rest of this year, a takeoff takes place and thus we receive a 2008 that can even cause the development of significant social media projects in terms of software, creation of content or who-knows-what.

8.  SAP, one of the world's largest software companies has contracted me to conduct this survey.  Could social media improve their position in Chile? How so?

Absolutely! I see the game like this: The first company to plant the social media seed will be the first to harvest the fruits. SAP has a prominent presence in Chile, so credibility and reputation are part of their "PR toolbox". I'd start with the techs, young and pro community, engaging and inviting them to a serious effort to disclose Social Media. Launch collaborating projects with national and social benefits, on a CSR basis. CSR or RSE in Spanish is the key path, from my perspective.

9.  Do you have any interesting case studies you could share with me?

The most remarkable example is the case of Digital Liberation ( Liberación Digital ). A movement that was born from a post of Leo Prieto on his tech blog FayerWayer.  There he  revealed  a restrictive and invasive collaboration between the Chilean government and Microsoft.

In less than 24 hours, that post became a Web site, and only 10 days later, received a  letter from the Commission of Science and Technology of the National Congress opposing the agreement . The letter, the different groups, the logo, the presentation, everything was created collaboratively on a wiki. As  Leo Prieto told me; "I have never seen an organization, public or private, move so fast and in a completely distributed and decentralized way". I totally agree with that

DEMO in the afternoon

I missed a session as I enjoyed the thrill of dealing with unUnited Airlines. More and more this carrier makes me consider the Amtrack alternative.  I'm told I missed the enterprise and deep technology segments, which is not so bad.

Here are ones I caught, and for one reason or another, thought worth mentioning.


Cornerworld--Read the script.  Claimed to be a new platform to compete with little companies like Facebook, eVite, flickr blog platforms and YouTube. It seems to me to be an authoring toolset that would be pretty neat, except they are trying to be all things to all people, both in business and consumer categories.  My experience is that a start up should enter the market to one thing in a focused and magnificent way.

SceneCaster --lets you easily create a 3D environment and build a community that starts there. Uses Google's 3D Warehouse that let's you drop in a huge number of objects into your virtual space. "We want to mainstream the 3D Web."

PeopleJam. Is about building online support systems.  It has three components, User-generated video on health related issues, such as someone wanting to avoid adult onset diabetes. A second component provides structured blogging.  Third component is an expert directory, featuring famous experts on the varied ways people pursue happiness.

Live Mocha is an Internet-based language teaching system. It shows a copper coin and a silver coin and uses Spanish to show you the difference.  It also connects you on the site with native people who will teach and review you on improving your language. This is a new approach and it looks like it would be fun to learn.

Graspr : Brings a new way of thinking about learning.  The site is a library of videos that teach anything. Then asks the communiy to add greater depth and context. Examples used, was crown ceiling molding.  Second example is jewelry meeting. Finds an expert who uses instructional video, discussion and chat to teach jewelry making because she just so happens to sell jewelry supplies.

Earthmine Platform is a new geo coding system that uses realistic 3D. It's hard to simply describe in words, but this is awesome display of putting real life visual information (the local Starbuck's or library, the detour etc.) and put it on the web.

Myxer introduced Mobilizer by Myxer. It seeks out web content suitable for mobile devices and grabs & stores it. Then offers it for sale to site visitors who will then download it to their mobile dvices.  It includes unique wallpaper & ringtones.

Like this morning, the afternoon was a series of solid base hits. A well-produced conference with numerous interesting companies. However, at the end of Day #1--my only day here, there is no one company that hit it out of the park.  There are lots of questions about how long these nice features will remain independent before large companies tak e advantage of their multiple little innovations.

Now, the exhibitor pavillion reopens and the demonstrators meet attendees a few at a time.  Follow up questions drill further down. There is another cocktail reception tonight then I will be at a press dinner followed by a late night party.

I've said it many times. This is my favorite conference. I like the quality, the social networking and precision.  I regret having to leave early.  I head out tomorrow morning for BlogOrlando, traveling thanks to my pals at United Air until 10:30 tomorrow night.

Regrets are assuaged by ego.  I transform from blogging in the audience to talking on the stage. Better work over the PowerPoint on the flight tomorrow, from my middle seat in the back of coach.

DEMO in the morning

[Arturo Artom on DEMO live screen, launching VideoMap Widget from Truman Show. Photo by Shel]

I'm live blogging this one.  Don't tell the Ragan folk. The rest of you please forgive me my typos and to those sitting next to me, I apologize for the flailing elbows and loud typing.

Shipley keynote: Lot of distance traveled since last DEMO. Last February, she talked about the power of the individual and decentralization of computing.  Now she see the power shifting from the few to the many. Shift to user generated content.  Allowing everyday people to customize content, such as teachers.  Now, we are peeling back the face of web 2.0 and finding greater speed, bandwidth and mobility.  This show will show the new deals.

"This DEMO is about everything 2.0.  Everyone is effected by the changes.

1 segment is on Video,

Digital Fountain of Fremont. Charles Oppenheimer says they are a video solutions company. Introduced Splash, a video content delivery network.  Showed how minor loss of video packet causes glitches.  Splash ensures that all the content gets delivered intact, even with packer loss. "Allows entertainment grade delivery over the Internet. Will be ready in January.  Selling this technology to content delivery companies.Showed extremely high quality video being sent live from Virginia. Using Amazon Web Services to employ Splash over the Internet. If this is the quality that we will be seeing in 2008, then I want this stuff. Great opening act.

Globalcast TV showed a dazzling   conferencing technology in that there is zero latency. Can use existing infrastructure technology.

Clipblast Introduced the clipblast video widget.  The highlight was a 3 second clip of me being interviewed by Scoble. Let's you clip any online video and play it on your desktop inside the widget. Can be used to distribute promos such a movie trailers. Very promising.

Radar is an internet video search engine that remarkable improves quality.  Because of a demogodglitch, it sounds like we'll have to take his word for it. When connection happened, showed running video searches on Radar, the product they were launching. 4 hit products in a row if you ask me.

MotionDSP introduced FixMyMovie.com which increases resolution, reduces noise, corrects color and lighting errors. It can enhance details in a way that the CIA apparently likes.  You can see before/after versions to compare the imrovements. Canmake a JPEG photo from any video.  The videos you upload, the company claims, actually get better.

YourTrumanShow introduced their VideoMap embedable widget which lets you share video from any source on the Internet with any member f your personal extended network. I am on the board of directors and if you ask me, they rock.

Diigolets you attach a virtual sticky note to anything on the web to share or forward them to your friends. The sticky note shoiws highlights and annotations. You can use them to add bookmarks to a list.

Cocomment addresses the challenges of tracking your own comments on the internet, because "if you cannot follow a conversation, how can you actually have a conversation online." It lets you see all the comments on a topic such as Iraq, and you can follow the trail to see what else that person has said on the Web.

ideablob.com is a group blog for everyday people looking for feedback on their ideas.

Spigit. also deals with ideas, this time for companies to use internally.  It uses virtual currency and awards to motivate employees to share.  It's sort of a virtual suggestion box for the Information Age, where everyone sees your ideas and is free to comment.  There are more levels of complexity to this however than there are in Dungeons and Dragons. I think they are trying to do far too much.  People like recognition for good ideas and that is a stronger motivation that getting employees to compete for rewards and points. I think they would go further with less.

Glam Media, an online fashion magazine introduced two widgets, one which allows you to curate web content and you can compare yourself to other curators.

What a strong opening segment.  If this is the quality of this conference's selections, we are in for an incredible DEMO.

Steve Larsen @DEMO: The wisest words of the night

[Steve Larsen in shoes of a god.
Photo by Shel]

I spent my first night of DEMO catching up with old friends like Michael Miller of Ziff Davis, Ed Baig of USA Today, Marc Orchant of Blognation,Amy Wohl,  John Patrick author of Net Attitude, a really brilliant book; Larry Magid and Chris Shipley

But Graeme Thickens and I closed down the bar with Steve Larsen, a serial entrepreneur who has presented on the DEMO dais four times, winning a DEMOgod award last year with Krugle, an incredible enterprise internal code search engine.

Steve is one of those guys I still learn from every time I talk with him and I talk with him all too rarely. Tonight he gave me a lesson based on a three-word mantra that has driven him successfully through a half dozen startups in about 15 years.

"Constraint spawns creativity."

Think about it. All startups are constrained.  They don't have money.  They don't have time.  They don't have all sorts of resources. They can't afford full marketing budgets or teams or advertising.

So they have to get creative. That's what drives the best start ups and a great number of examples are sure to be witnessed here at DEMO over the next few days.

It's good to see Steve.  It's good to be here.

YourTrumanShow launching FaceBook Widget at DEMOfall

Duncan Riley and Frank Gruber are among the first to announce that YourTrumanShow will be announcing a widget that allows you to share your online videos with your friends wherever on the internet that your stuff resides. I sit on the board for YourTrumanShow and have been working with them on their presentation tomorrow morning.

I would have scooped the other bloggers, but I thought the conference embargo was for 7 pm tonight, not this morning.  That's okay, but I turned green tis morning when I thought we had broken the strictly enforced DEMO embargo.

Among the reasons I took a board seat at YourTrumanShow is what this widget does. In Global Neighbourhoods, my thought was that your personal network is more important than the site.  It doesn't matter if your at Facebook, or YouTube or YourTrumanShow.  What matters is that you can share what you like with the people you like.

YourTrumanShow is not alone in making my grand vision of six months ago a reality faster than I could write the book. It is a very cool way of making the sites unimportant and the social network more important.

The result is that I see a book idea obsolete itself fast, but hook up with a great company and in the end the users win.

If you are going to be at DEMOfall let me know. I'll only be there for 24 hours, but I'd love to hook up with you.


Technorati Tags: YourTrumanShow, VideoBeads, DEMOfall

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Dawn Douglas takes on TechCrunch

Just a few days ago, I wrote that you had to have a death wish to take on Michael Arrington, Jason Calacanis and TechCrunch, and one of the TC40 Demo Pit 100 has done precisely that.
I don't think Dawn Douglas has anything like a death wish.

As Scoble describes Dawn, she is a class act. She feels she was dealt with abusively and she has been around the block too many times to be pushed around. I don't know anything for sure about what happened because I was not there, but Dawn's writing has a ring of truth to it.

Then there's the issue of covering the ethically deprived pay per post people.  I once wrote that I wish they would crash and burn.  Then I wrote about them no more until this point. There is a blogger, a rather prominent one.  I wrote that I wished he would shut up and sit down.  Then I wrote no more. I get enough traffic without helping to draw attention to the sites that I wish no well.

Much is said about Michael Arrington and his temper. I don't know Mike well.  He has always treated me with respect. He hosted the Naked Conversations launch party, to which I will always be grateful. But word of his arrogant behavior keeps circulating and he would do well to listen very closely to what Dawn has said.

And to adjust course accordingly if what she says is even partly true.

 


Technorati Tags: arrington, TC40, dawn dougkas

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SAP Global Survey: Poland's Pawel Nowacki

                  [Pawel Nowacki. From his photo file.]

[NOTE: This is the fourth from the last of the SAP Global Survey interviews. There will be a break while I write up my report for SAP in October. For those of you, who agreed to interviews who I have not yet reached, I apologize.  I hope to be conducting interviews again in November.]

Poland's Paweł Nowacki reinforces on of the survey's findings. Citizen Journalism is flourishing in cultures that are getting out from under monolithic government thumbs.  Often, Citizen Journalism is a breakaway project, to get news  directly to people and bypassing traditional media. In the case of Poland, traditional media owns Wiadomości24.pl the first and largest Polish internet newspaper. It is part of Polskapresse, the second largest Polish newspaper publisher and the leading regional media news company.

Pawel began working as a student radio journalist in 1983 and when communism fell, he was working with Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's first independent newspaper. By 2000, he had emerged as editor in chief of Dziennik Lodzki, the largest regional newspaper, where he remained until 2005 when he accepted an offer to lead the country's first citizen journalism project.

He has won journalism awards, has a second degree in cinemetography and lectures on journalism at Poland's University of Lodz.

1. Can you give me a general idea about technology and Internet access in Poland? How many people have cell phones, PCs, internet and broadband access?

From 2000 to 2006, the number of internet users increased by over 307%.  Poland has a population of 38 million, with 25 million cell phones, so most adults have them. There are 10-15 million PCs,with an estimated 13 million people using the Internet about 34% of the population. Broadband access is smaller--about 1.75 million. It is projected that in three years, half of the Polish people will be using the Internet.

The number of home Internet users is increasing, while the number using it at work is declining.

2. What are the dominant businesses in Poland? What do people do for a living? How is the standard of living for the average family? What sort of technology do people use in their homes and at work?

Since 1989, when Communism fell, most people have been employed in private companies, mostly big, international corporations,who have invested and built in Poland.

The average Polish life expectancy is approximately a 50, just 60% of the EU average. Many families have cars--middle class families often have two. They also have TV, telephone, DVD etc.

3. Can you tell me about Wiadamosci24 your Citizen Journalism project? How did it get started? How is it doing?  What does the name mean in English?

We were inspired to establish Wiadomosci24.pl by OhmyNews, AgoraVox, iTalkNews, Newsvine.com, Bluffton Today. The Wiadomosci24.pl founders wanted to become as successful as the sites above. The name simply means "News 24."

Wiadomosci24.pl belongs to Polskapresse, the largest publisher of regional dailies in Poland. Regional dailies are the group's specialty, employing 760 journalists. One of our reasons to start the online service was to publish a natioanl online newspaper.

4. At least from the people Hugo has pointed me to, Citizen Journalism seems to be really taking off in Central Europe. Why do you think that is?

In Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism, it became very important to have a second circulation of information. There is no go-between, the way of information is shortened. On the net, every point of view has the same level of importance.  For example in News24.pl it is very important to prezent your own opinion. Comments, opinions : “In My Opinion” (Moje Trzy Grosze) idea for:
             - extensive comments,
             - opinion ON  political and social issues,
             - controversial topics such as euthanasia or abortion. Some contributors are only                commentators not writers. They write only for “In My Opinion”.

5. Tell me about other social media in Poland.  I am told blogging is quite big there, is it true? What social media tools are being used and for what purposes? Is it mostly young people?  What social networks do they join?

In recent years, blogs have become very popular. Also many different internet communities have been formed and are taking off. They are very trendy and appeal to young people 16-35.

Some people write more than one blog. Communities which are being created In the Internet are a second circulation of information. Similar to other countries, Polish people create avatars in SecondLife. Apart from citizen journalism portals (News24.pl, iThink.pl, other blog platforms) also very popular are global communities like YouTube, MySpace, Bebo and localized Polish sites: Grono.net, Goldenline, Blip.

6. Are businesses using social media and if so, which tools and for what purposes?

Business models often focus on building communities gathered around big brands, such as Nokia.

7. What languages do most Polish people speak? Do people in Poland use social media to talk with people in other countries?  If so, which countries?

Most Polish people speak English. A majority of people between 16-30 knows this language. Other popular languages are: German, French and Russian. After Poland entered the EU, young people started talking with people from other countries, mostly Great Britain, Ireland, German, France, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and other European countries.

8. Has social media impacted Polish culture? How so?  What do you think the impact on culture will be over the next 5-10 years.

New media creats new pop culture heroes. There are in Poland, celebrities whose careers started and bloomed on the Internet. Social media is a short route to a career. One song can make a singer known. Our cultural world will be different in 5-10 years.

9. What advice do you have for global companies such as SAP who would like to increase business ties with Poland?

They should listen to the social reactions,  because they rapidly change trends. Something which is on top today, will be passe tomorrow.

10. Additional Comments?

People here have just started to realize how big is the power of Internet.  We will have much to offer to the rest of the world.

Annual Window Cleaning for PC Users

[My Thinkpad X60S. Salvaged by Geeks and zipping again. Photo by Shel]

I get kidded a lot about the tech problems I so often seem to have. Last week I was at TC 40 and was the only person in the front two rows who could not get on my computer. The trouble is I am not alone in what goes wrong for me.  In fact, I am among millions of people who work on Windows-based machines, who are not tech professionals and do not have IT support to tweak their machines.

It's worse for me than it may be for you, because I move around a lot with an ultralight computer and Windows does not seem to like me connecting to the Internet from several places every day.

About a year after I buy a computer it starts developing goofy anomalies. This time it began in May, when my desktop photo went don making my background the Thinkpad Time Zone default. Over the next few months, I developed a list of 30 anomalies, some of which came and went, some of which stayed.  The worst was a persistent freeze up of my Outlook mail client, followed by a wait of several minutes to rebuild my personal folder.

In the end, I went to the Geek Squad counter at Good guys.  I had them do a clean wipe and rebuild of my hard disk. Now I need to personalize everything again. Firefox does not recall any sites I have visited, nor does Outlook recall who I've previously emailed.

Other than that my Thinkpad zips and sings like a new computer and I am a happy camper. I tossed in an extra Gig of DRAM and was out of the store for $450. Much cheaper than a new PC (or MAC). And if I had bought a new computer, it probably would have cost $150 anyway, to port my data from old to new computer.

With the money, I've saved, I'll probably buy a video camera, because the webcam I'm using to blog is severely limited. The big fear is that Thinkpads are really not built for multimedia and my growing passion for video may force me into a Mac in the end after all.

I write this, because the Geeks confirmed to me that, most people with Windows based machines, particularly laptops need to do what I just did, but perhaps not as frequently. If you have a laptop, the average is 18 months. If you have a desktop, on the average it's once every two years.

Yet another Irish-Jewish joke

Ken Carroll, living in Shanghai, tried to post the following funny story as a Comment, but got blocked with a note saying that spam was suspected and that he should contact me.  He did.  I tried to post this and got the same message--that I should contact me. This at a time when I was trying to cure myself of talking to myself.

Before someone gets a funny idea, this will be the second and final posting on Irish/Jewish jokes. Try leaving them as comments and see if the Typepad humor censor allows it. But I'll post no more of them. There is an endless supply of these jokes..

A rabbi was playing poker with 2 priests in Dublin when the cops showed up. One of the cops says, "Father Kelly, have you just been engaged in illegal gambling?"

Father Kelly winces, and mutters under his breadth, "Please God, forgive me for what I am about to do." He looks at the cop and says, "Absolutely not, officer."

The cop turns to the second priest and says, "Father O Brien, were you gambling just now?"

Father O Brien looks towards heaven, pauses for a second, bites his lip, and says painfully, "No... Not at all, officer."

The cop turns to the Rabbi and says, "And what about you, Rabbi Goldberg. Have you been gambling?"

The Rabbi, looking perplexed, says "Gambling, officer? With who?"

BTW, Shel, last time on your world tour you never made it to Shanhghai. Next time look us up. Things are starting to happen here!

If you have another joke, please try posting as a comment.

There's 2 beggars outside an Irish Church

    

     [Beggar on steps of Irish Church.  Photo by Paula Israel]

Today is  Yom Kippur, the Jewish  Day of Atonement, when we Bagel Brothers are supposed to fast. I thought I'd stave off the hunger by telling one of my favorite Irish stories.

I've now posted 10 video blogs over at YourTrumanShow. In part, I'm helping them get ready to launch something cool at DEMOfall on Tuesday, but I'm also having a lot of fun with it. I need some coaching on lighting and audio, and this Thinkpad may be the reason my synch is a little off, but I'm having lots of fun with it. 

I call my video blog "UpClose" and as such, I've made it more personal than in my other online  communications, but yes, I will start including more tech stories very soon. Tech is too much of my personal story to leave it out completely. I'll probably post a few clips next at DEMO, and  BlogOrlando the MeasurementSummit in Portsmouth NH, where I am a panelist.

Hugh MacLeod's 'Agents of Calcification

With the possible exception of Scoble, I have probably linked to Hugh macLeod more than any other person.  I just can't help it.  He speaks truth with clarity, illustrates with ironic brilliance, shows his humanity with ease and remains a class act at all times.

In this one post, he has the surprise of inserting nostalgia into the walls of an aging McDonalds, the delivers the timeless observation that there exists a strata of broad-buttoxed institutions in large organizations, best described as "agents of calcification."  These are not the does, nor are they the pillars, but rather the leepers of the status quo.

I see them when I speak to large company gatherings. They often sit near the rear of the room, usually sitting with arms akimbo.  They spend much time looking out windows or at walls.  They rarely look directly at the speaker, but when they do, their heads then move from side-to-side.

When I'm the speaker, evangelizing my faith in companies that join the cult of generosity, when I argue that most people would rather be listened to than talked at, when I say that transparency reveals there are real people doing real jobs inside these walls, I can read the minds of these agents of calcification.

They are thinking: "Uh Uh.  Not here.  Not while I hold the keys to the gate.  Not during my watch," and they are right.  It won't happen during their watch.

The good news is that they are getting on in years.  And they won't be holding those keys that much longer. And chances are they will be replaced by younger, more energetic professionals who are a whole lot cooler than they are.

Or maybe, I inhaled to much in my youth. In any case, thanks for another well-turned phrase, Hugh.







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Scoble's Best Podtech Video Ever!

At least I think so.

Boy do we ever have a problem staying on a subject. Thank God Wiley gave us a good editor. My dog Brewster interrupted us when Robert asked me a great question about what happens when you have a great demo and a poor product. I started to talk about Homestead Technology, a past client of mine that is still around hawking roll-your-own websites.   Homestead presented at DEMO a couple years back to launch a follow-on service for roll-your-own blogsites for small businesses.  The technology wasn't ready, and for that matter the market wasn't either. Existing blog authoring services were not exactly hard like HTML had been.

No matter. Homestead's founding partners got on stage and belted out an amazingly clever original song, while a photo montage flashed on the DEMO super screens. It was the closest  Chris Shipley's production ever got to MTV.

Homestead's technology, as far as I know, never gained traction, but people still remember the song, which inspired the only standing ovation I have ever seen at this conference that I've attended over 15 times.

Nice memory.  But my guess is that their six-minute concert probably cost them about $30 K from start to finish. If you ask me, they would have been better off staying home and working on technology that people would embrace.

It's all about the product.  A crappy presentation with great technology is so much more valuable than a great presentation with crappy technology.

My failed TC40 Twitter blog experience

My idea was simple. I would take notes at TC40 on Twitter, posting them in neat little 140 character capsules. Then, after the conference, I'd assemble them into post here. I would also use my little WebCam to grab some vid clips of famous people like Michael Arrington and Mark Zuckerbergand post them at YourTrumanShow and then embed them in the the blog post here.

Rick Smolan's new project

Rick Smolan (Against All Odds); Jessie Smolan, originally uploaded by GBD.

This may be the only time I ever post a traditional press release on this site, but the amazing photographer and collaborative photo book producer Rick Smolan is behind this project, and before we social media maniacs stole the term "Citizen Journalist,  Rick was organizing citizen photo journalists on a global basis.

Please note the date.  I wish I had known sooner, but there is still time to click in:

Beginning Sept. 17, in the course of a single week, 100 of the world’s top photojournalists – and millions of amateur shutterbugs – will fan out around the United States to shoot digital photos of the most important place in their lives: Home.

With America at Home, Rick Smolan and the team that produced A Day in the Life of America: America 24/7, 24 Hours in Cyberspace, and One Digital Day, will be taking on their biggest challenge to date. The result, which is expected to include several million photographs, will be the most extensive record of American home life ever attempted.

“The idea of ‘home’ is as universal and deeply ingrained as that of ‘mother’ or ‘father,’” says Smolan. “Ask people to describe what the word ‘home’ means to them and their answers tap into a deep pool of emotions and memories. We’re inviting millions of Americans to collaborate in the creation of a digital time capsule that may prove to be an invaluable resource for our descendants to understand the fabric of home life in 2007.”

Editorially, America at Home aims to capture the emotions of home: the distinctive rituals, intimate moments and all the myriad ways in which we work, play, learn, conduct our lives and interact with friends, family members (and pets!) as we transform our dwellings into our homes. From McMansions to mobile homes, from tree houses to tenement slums, from ranches to old age homes, the public is invited to help document the harmonies and paradoxes of home life across America over a single seven-day period.

Snapshots Heard ‘round the Nation

Through massive grassroots online outreach, millions of Americans are being invited to simultaneously contribute their own images via a series of daily snapshots taken at the same time of day across the nation each day throughout the week. Participants will receive daily emails with assignment instructions and can also take general photos of what makes their home special.

The public is invited to sign up and upload their images at www.MyAmericaAtHome.com.

An international team of leading magazine and newspaper photo editors will edit all of the images, shot by both professionals and amateurs. The best images will be woven together with essays from leading writers in a unique and evocative coffee table book, a website, a TV show, and an exhibit.

The images shot by the 100 professional photojournalists and millions of amateurs will reflect the extraordinary diversity that makes up American family life and will represent a broad range of economic, geographic, racial, political, and socially diverse lifestyles. Topics covered will include:
-- A mother showcases the chaos and glory of her teen-tycoon son’s bedroom,
-- Multi-generational families living under the same roof,
-- A mom snaps her 10-year-old daughter snuggling with ‘flat daddy’, a life-sized cut-out of Army dad, away in his second tour of duty in Iraq,
-- A ‘Grand Central’ abode which welcomes a never-ending stream of friends,
-- A single family house shared by two families, who occupy it in shifts,
-- A pro shooter documents a 5-year-old child of divorce bouncing between her two Manhattan bedrooms,
-- An eco-hermit snaps his ‘living’ desert hideaway complete with breathable walls,
-- A professional photographer tours a million dollar mobile home that follows its movie star owner from film location to film location,
-- A Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer shoots a family in the last home standing in a condemned neighborhood,
-- Another photographer explores the secret rooms hidden behind book-shelves and under stairs commissioned by an army of adult Peter Pans.
*
A unique element of America at Home is that it encourages participation by cell phone camera users. More than a billion people around the world have an Internet-connected camera in their pocket all day long: their phone. This project will be the first time the full combined power of these millions of phones in the U.S. has been activated for a common purpose. "Humanity has a deep need to tell stories,” says Smolan. “That’s why photographs are so important to people. The ability to shoot and then instantly share images is going to dramatically change the way humanity sees itself and how each of us tells our own stories."
The America at Home book will be published by Running Press in March 2008 and will offer the public the ability to personalize their books with customized covers. The custom cover feature was largely responsible for the success of Smolan's last project, America 24/7, when more than 21% of all book buyers customized their copies. This was the first time in publishing history that a New York Times best-seller was mass customized by its readers.

America at Home is made possible through a partnership with IKEA with additional support being provided by HP's Snapfish, Google, BabyCenter.com, Nikon, FotoNation.net and TravelMuse.

TechCrunch 40 & Porcupine Humping

                 [Pat Phelan & some Irish Wannabee. Photo by Shel]

Sometimes, I feel like I need more hats than a centipede wears shoes. At TC40 I realized that I was not alone. One of the companies I consult from time-to-time is Cubic Telecom. I helped them prepare to present at the conference, where I had credentials to attend as a blogger reviewing the conference.

As I turned out, they didn't extremely well with an announcement of a service that lets you send and receive local calls from 50 countries in one mobile phone, cutting about 90% off your current roaming costs--and you get to pick the countries. As it also turned out, I had all sorts of computer headaches and gave up on my plans to review the companies.

But writing about a client is always hairy. I try to get others to comment on whether they did well or not.

But at TC40 I realized how much I was not alone. In my previous post, I wrote about my apprehensions that i might have to give this conference a bad review. But the guy sitting behind me, Duncan Riley had the real headache. He was the TechCrunch reporter covering TechCrunch. If I thought panning this conference would demonstrate a death wish for me, just what would it mean for him?

But let's go further.  What if I said the conference sucked and Riley had written that it was great? TechCrunch readership is about 60 times larger than mine. In fact, TechCrunch readership is probably equal to the combined circulation of all the bloggers who were writing, assuming that Om stayed out of the game.

Now I'm not saying that anything funny happened. In fact, Riley did a superb job of covering and it was my special interest that had me link to a post where Riley called my client "brilliant" and showed a picture of Cubic founder Pat Phelan.

My point is this: In simpler times, the journalists took a vow of poverty and didn't cover the people who could pay them. In simpler times the director of the show, would not have one of the show's most powerful reviewers sitting in the second row, wearing a media badge.

Times are stating to require we be more careful how we act than someone who wants to hum a porcupine.

Reflections on TC40

[TC40 some of the thousand attendees. Photo by Shel]

TechCrunch 40 was an incredibly successful first attempt at what I am sure will become a flagship conference.  Those 1000-plus attendees who gathered at the SF Palace Hotel will be able to boast they were there when it started; there at the creation of a dynasty, when you could pay a mere $2 K to sit on the floor and eat Chinese food out of a To Go box; there at the first conference that was supposed to spotlight only 20 startups from all over the world, but grew to 40 or 140, or 143, when you add on the last-minute additions of AOL, Google and Yahoo, who are not exactly your usual startups.

TC40 was also no place to use technology to launch technology since both mobile and wifi connection was often spottier than a leopard with measles.

Yet this conference worked and it do so extremely well. While nearly everyone seemed to have a kvetch or two, everyone--presenting companies, press, investors, social media gadflies and a seemingly endless supply of uninformed publicists--they all were delighted to be in there and they all want to come back for the next one.

Media coverage has been abundant. In fact, it may be the-covered tech gathering ever that did not have Steve Jobs on stage.  I usually live blog events like this, so I can be among the first voices. But there were times, when everyone in the room seemed to have wifi connection except me, so this time, I may be among the last. So much has been said already about the companies, those gems for which we assembled, that I can think of very little to add.

What I thought I would do instead is to review the conference itself.  I know a bit about tech conferences and hopefully what I have to say is constructive and useful.

Inspired by Joe Thornley, I think I'll go long.

Screw Shakespeare

Do you remember "Shakespeare in Love." There was absolute chaos, and then the curtain would go up and everything would be perfect. Well, TC40 had chaos in it's preparation and it was certainly not a flawless production, but from where it was a few weeks before the event to where it stood at it closing, shows is an interesting success story.

Prior to the event, the number of presenting companies changed often enough to make a Bingo addict happy.  First, 20, then 40, then 140 and finally 143. First, start ups some of them so pre-financed that they could not afford the the entrance fee that competing conferences charged. Then Facebook, Google, Yahoo and AOL. First Arrington warning social media companies tha connection in the arcane Palace for internet and carriers would be less than desirable, followed by co-producer Jason Calacanis imposing last minute rehearsals and threatening to expel companies that did not present live Demos.

Experience and conventional wisdom flagged this event for me. Lots of last minute changes often result in disaster, despite the Shakespeare movie experience. This psed a personal problem.  If I cover an event, I call it as I see it.  I have written negatively about a client when I felt he deserved it.  But if you happen to be a member of the social media community, you need to have a very strong death wish if you pan an event produced by Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington.

Thank the gods this conference came out so well.  How did it do so? I don't know, it's a miracle. But screw Shakespeare. It's really the worng metaphor and the right one is much closer to home.

TC40 was very like any of the social media startups the conference spotlighted. These days, we all get to see early, messy beta and watch as chunks of coal transform into diamonds in remarkably short time. The Internet allows--no requires--that they get out in public where we end users can try the stuff, poke, sometimes kick and occasionally shout at you. It is amazing the speed f transformation we see and that is my perspective of what I witnessed at TC40.

Each segment--featuring five startups who then came back to be questioned by a panel of alleged experts--got a little bit better than the previous segment. What was happening? The producers were getting better and more comfortable in their roles.  Their tech crew was refining their efforts a fast clip. The companies who would present later figured out what was working and not working and adjusted course. The panel experts who came up later, learned that the niceness of the first group failed almost as much as the arrogance of the panel that followed in a later segment.

By the end of Day #1, TC40 had pulled out a "not bad" rating from hallway pundits. It had been a firehose of a day. Twenty startups had presented, plus AOL, plus a fireside chat between Arrington and the amazingly on-message Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Arrington is a top notch interviewer and this was my favorite part of the day.

But the breaks had been brief and the lunch was a messy event. There had been no "night before"  reception, which is my idea of a good way to start.

But as I walked a few blocks to my cheap parking garage, I realized that there was an important element that had been missing from my experience. Online social networking is neat, but nothing beats face-to-face meetings and, hopefully, nothing will.

That apparently got resolved after I had driven home to a warm wife and the thrill of a night of client work. A TC40 party started at 9:30 pm. Adult refreshment flowed  freely.  people mixed and exchanged pitches.  There was flirting and arguing and joking. The event was loud and ended late  I was told, two sure signs of a successful party

The importance of this event should not be underestimated. People come to schmooze at least as much as they come to sit and watch. It may have been the tipping point for TC40.

I walked in a tad late to the opening of Day #2, but I immediately sensed a changed atmosphere. Attendees were engaged. It was more than the fact that the number of chairs in the room almost matched the number of buttocks (unlike Day #1). But there was more.  Arrington and Calacanis seemed to be enjoying themselves and enjoying each other. The opening set was considered the best segment of the entire two days by most people I asked.

Even the review panels had improved.  This is a portion of future TC40s I would like to see tweaked. After each group of five companies presented, a representative of each company would come back onstage, where they be reviewed by industry luminaries whose job it seemed to be to rate and critique them.  With 10 people seated at a long tabe on the daid, Calacanis served as emcee from out in the audience. Then there were two microphones where attendees could queue up to ask questions, which seemed to happen only when the panelists and Calacanis ran out of words of their own, which seemed to me to be an all-too-rare occasion. I like to here what attendees have to say.  I like it when the presenting companies can talk to the people who paid to see them--or maybe I'm just pissed off because I did not get the chance to ask my own question.

Next year,  would suggest that the five company representatives be joined by only one expert.  That expert's job would be to ask follow up questions,, rather than opine. Then allow much more time for audience participation.

Bonding and Confirmation

Maybe it was that everyone bonded the night before while I was sequestered with work, but the co-hosts were loser, funnier and more attuned to attendee mood swings. Like beta managers, they had done a tweak here and a tweak there and the program was getting fine-tuned. the hallway ratings were much higher on Day #2.

Calacanis and Arrington made two smart calls.  One presenter, used a canned demo and Calacanis hooked them off the stage. Another company, limbo itself way below the bar for good taste, obviously catching the producers by surprise. Arrington immediately apologized, saying this company had been deceptive in the content it would serve up.

Decisions like that have to be made on the fly.  To overreact or under react can cost a conference its future.

By Tuesday night, Arrington and Calacanis were a cool team, apparently enjoying themselves, each other and the event that they had somehow pulled off.  So were attendees and most of the 140 companies who had bet their futures on participating.

One company executive admitted to getting very little attention in the Demo Pit was still happy. "Hey, we can tell people all year that we launched at TC 40.  That alone makes the experience worth it," he told me.

By the closing event, where Mint won it's $50 k award, presented in the form of an oversized check like they used to have on game shows when TVs still had rabbit ears,there was a festive mood to the 750 or so attendees who had stayed to the end.

People had socially networked live and in color. Deals were being discussed in corners and in the hallway, new relationships were forming, investors and entrepreneurs were engaged in mating dances and, for the most part, attendees were happy customers.

When Arrington and Calacanis asked the crowd if there should be a TC40 next year there was resounding confirmation.

What's the takeaway?

I try to leave every conference I attend with a singe paragraph that tells me what I learned. For TC40 it's this:

Social media is no longer about sites.  It's about sharing.  It's about finding your friends and their digital content wherever it is located on the web. It doesn't matter whether you keep your stuff on Flickr or YouTube or Facebook. What matters is your ability to share it. This trend is putting the power into the hands of small peer-to-peer networks. This is a good thing for people and a nice fat headache for traditional marketers who still do not understand what it means to join the conversation.

This leaves me not knowing whether to gloat or cry. The idea of you sharing with friends as the sites themselves fade into background was what the book "Global Neighbourhoods" was going to predict.  But it is happening too fast and I could not predict it in book form faster than it is occurring.

Maybe my next book will take an historic perspective rather than a look at the future. Maybe I should write about the birth of of Facebook, ending it with the IPO that has not yet happened.

There I go again, making  a prediction.

SAP Global SurveY: KG Prasad Rolls His Own

      [KG Prasad. From his file]

K.Govind Prasad of Chennai, India, a pre-print publisher is the most recent person in the world to roll-his-own answers to the SAP Global Survey. He's also the first Indian and first person to extol the virtues of wikis for the survey.

I am wrapping up the survey, at least it's current portion, so that I can submit a report to SAP  on what I found. Most of that report will be released to the public in one form or another, before year end. To those of you who agreed to be interviewed and I did not contact, I hope SAP will allow me to continue the survey after my report is completed.  I'd like it to be an ongoing thing.

If you would like to roll your own, please send them to me before Sept. 30.

Zuckerberg announces Fund for Facebook developers

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is being interviewed  by Michael Arrington at TC40.  He just announced a $10 million grant fund for Facebook third party developers.  The money comes from Facebook's investors who will take no equity in these "grants" of $25 K to $250,000 K.  The investors only want a chance to get in on the subsequent rounds if there is to be one.

Twittering @ TC40

I'll write some long pieces on TC 40 after it's over. Today I'm twittering 140 character capsules at shelisrael on Twitter.  Follow me if you like.

Exec summary:  Good companies, awful technology which is hard on the bloggers and harder on the demonstrating companies.

Joe Thornley on why he's blogging less

                 [Joe Thornley blogging less. Photo by Hyku]

Joe Thornley talks about why he's reading and posting fewer blogs.  he's ignoring early advice and posting longer pieces as well in contrast to the conventional wisdo he heard when he started blogging.

Times change, Joe.  So does behavior.  When you started blogging, it was the only hot social media tool.  Now, we have lots of the and blogs themselves are normalizing.  There is far less frenzy and perhaps a little ore substance than there has been.

I've been think that we don't need more blogs.  We need better bloggers. And the quality is not just emerging, it's value is become more sustainable. I too blog a lot less.  My posts, particularly on the SAP Global Survey are longer. My Technorati ranking, for whatever it's worth, is staying pretty steady even when I don't post for several days.

The times, they are changing Joe, and this is a good thing, or so it seems to me.

Monster in a Bottle

As he uncorks his integration of the Stormhoek and Microsoft brands, maybe Hugh should change the name of his blog to "Graping Void." He could also give the Microsoft Blue Monster a name.  It's a shame Moby Grape has been used.

Office 2.0 Panel is up at Podtech

Tom Foremski has posted a video

of our entire Office 2.0 panel presentation, which I thought went quite well. The quality of the video--to my knowledge-- is the best ever done of me on the dais.  But the real stars are my five panelists:

• Anil Dash, Vice President, Evangelism, Six Apart
• John McCrea, Vice President of Marketing, Plaxo
• Adam Nash, Senior Director, Product, LinkedIn
• Shiv Singh, Enterprise Solutions Director, Avenue A | Razorfish
• Athena von Oech, Director of Advocacy & Support, Ning

Each of them is a star and I am honored to have share the stage with them.

Old Dogs & New Tricks

This is not the first time I have used the above headline. It was what I titled my very first blog post back in November 2003. I had no idea then how social media would change my life over these four years.

The title seems fitting because I am now an older dog, but in the past few days, I've been learning the new tricks of Twitter and video blogging. I have been on Twitter [shelisrael] for about 24 hours now and have had lots of fun.  I've learned how to use it on my iPhone thanks to my pal Pat Phelan. But it will be  a few days before I understand the personal networking and business value that Scoble and Jeremiah keep extolling.

But I'm getting really immersed in video blogging, in part, because I'm on the board of directors for YourTrumanShow.  Their site has been in beta for several weeks, but they have a really big new announcement coming up at DEMO, my favorite entrepreneurial conference. So I have posted a few episodes. I call it "UpClose," because I am taking a very personal approach, more than I do on this blog. The most popular of my video posts has all of 15 views so far, and that is probably as it should be. Truman may be a site with a million users each have an audience of 25 friends watching.  That's just fine with us.  The Internet for us is more about sharing then promoting.

But I will get better.  At least I hope I will.

Please take a look at my few brief episodes if you have time and inclination.  Go to the beta site and search for "shel israel." Comments are buried way below.  You can leave them here or there or email them to me.  Be constructive, but please--be kind. I'm a newbie at this.

All these new tricks.  Gotta go.  Now where did Paula put those newspapers on the floor?

SAP Global Survey: Russia's Rostislav Vylegzhanin

    

[Rostislav "Rostik" Vylegzhanin"
OhMyNews Photo]

Rostislav Vylegzhanin, or "Rostik" is co-founder and editor Realno.info, the first Russian citizen journalism site Realno.info, which launched last November. He is also an executive editor of Ogoniok oldest Russian magazine. Earlier this year, Rostin lead the committee that produced the first Russian-based international blogging conference.

Rostik makes clear that citizen journalism has greater importance in countries where traditional media are controlled by monoliths. He also gives me a whole new respect for LiveJournal from Six Apart.

1. Can you give me a general idea about technology and Internet access in the Russian Federation? How many people have cell phones, PCs, internet and broadband access?

Recent surveys estimate that about 25-30% of Russian citizens are Internet users. Some are online daily at home or at work, others just use the Web several times in a year.

About 30% of families have PCs, not all of them connected to the Internet. Around 65% own cell phones, but not more than 20% of them use WAP, GPRS, EDGE to connect to the Internet.

In our big cities most people use ADSL, WLAN, WiFi or WiMax to connect. It's not very expensive. In Moscow for example unlimited access costs about $20-25 a month, but in some cases one can find $9 unlimited rates. I should also mention that many people don't have Internet connection at home  but they are active Internet users at work for both personal and business use.

In outlying regions, small cities and towns there are still many dial-up users. Costs are sometimes very high. But in more and more places at least ADSL-connection is replacing dial-up.

2. Can you tell me about your Citizen Journalism activities? How did it get started? How is it doing? How does traditional media view what you are doing?

If it is ok, I will quote my report for OhmyNews International Forum 2007. [Shel note: I did some extracting and condensing to the following portion-SI]

Practically all Russian TV is state-owned and “censored” (I use quote marks because censorship is Constitutionally prohibited but exists de facto).  Most Russian national newspapers are also controlled by authorities. Most regional media is controlled by regional governments.

There are only a few independent national radio stations, as well as a few national independent newspapers. Some regions have independent media, but practically all of them are under pressure.

Freedom of press has been gradually worsening since 2000, when Vladimir Putin took office.

I have to state that we have no freedom of expression and freedom of press in today's Russia. It means that mass media doesn't play a watchdog role for democracy and doesn't serve public interest as they must.

Only the Internet still remains as an absolutely free mediasphere in Russia where all viewpoints can be expressed, where all political leanings are represented.

I don't know why authorities haven't tried to control the Internet yet. Maybe because only one-third of Russians use it, so the Internet is less influential than TV.

Thus, it's not surprising that blogs became popular for hosting public discussions on topics the traditional mass media ignore and for spreading information that cannot be  published or broadcast by Big Media.

The American blog-hosting service LiveJournal.com has become especially popular in Russia. Today it hosts about one million Russian blogs who come form intellectual elite, journalists, politicians, active citizens and so on. LiveJournal represents Russian civic society as it is. That's why the roots of citizen journalism and citizen reporting in Russia are in LiveJournal.

Until last November, there were no citizen journalism sites in the Russian part of the Web, ones like OhmyNews and many other sites that attract user-created news stories just weren't here.

I graduated from Moscow State Institute of International Relations in summer of last year. My diploma work was about blogs and citizen journalism. Being inspired by successful examples of citizen journalism sites in the US and, of course, by OhmyNews, I had strong desire to launch the first Russian site that would attract citizen reporting and become a mass-medium without any kind of censorship that affects traditional media.

At the same time, the same idea emerged in the 2000-member NGO Club of Regional Journalists. We decided to combine efforts. On Nov. 7, 2007, we launched the first Russian citizen journalism site called Realno.info (means “in reality”).

Fifty regional professional journalists from the Club became our first citizen reporters, publishing on Realno.info those news-stories they couldn't publish in their own media because of imposed 'censorship', pressure or even self-censorship.

Today Realno.info joins together 320 citizen reporters and professional journalists from all over the country post from five to 15 times daily.  All our contributors are volunteers. The site doesn't pay anything them anything.

Realno.info attracts about 1000 unique visitors daily.

Our investors stopped financing the site in March. So, there is no money for programming and promotion. While we are trying to find ways to continue, I can't say for sure that this project will succeed.

3. So, is there a future for citizen journalism in Russia?

What makes me optimistic is the speed of growth in the Russian blogosphere.

But still, there is a long way to go before we can bring the culture of citizen journalism to Russia. Because citizen journalism isn't only blogging.

Realno.info will continue work in this sphere. Now we're preparing the second Moscow conference on citizen media, which will take place in Moscow next spring. I hope, we'll be able to invite some of you to this conference to speak about your own experiences in citizen journalism.

4. At least from the people Hugo has pointed me to, Citizen Journalism seems to be really taking off in your section of the world. Why do you think that is?

The only reason I see is that people are very passive. It's just mentality.

5. Tell me about other social media in Russia. What tools are being used? Is it mostly young people using social networks?

Blog hosting, social networks (sites like classmates.com) and video hostings are very popular. Not only young people use blogs, social networks, etc., but users of different ages, professions and so on. For example an average age of a LiveJournal user in the US is 18. In Russia it's 21.

6. Are businesses using social media and if so, which tools and for what purposes?

Some companies have their own blogs to contact their customers, ut not many. Most of the companies that use social media simply advertise themselves on Internet social networks and blog-hostings.

7. Besides Russian, what languages do Russian people speak?

Practically all people in Russia speaks Russian. All sites in the .RU internet zone are in Russian.

But in national republics that are parts of the Russian Federation, people also speak their native languages. Like the Tatar language or the Bashkir language.

Not many (but more-and-more) Russians speak foreign languages. The most popular are English and German.

8. Do social media have much impact on Russia culture? Do you think it will impact it in the next 5-10 years?

LiveJournal has a real impact on Russian social and political life. LiveJournal in Russia became the place where Russian citizen society is forming. I think the influence of blogs and especially blogs in LiveJournal on Russian life will increase in the next years.

9. Could social media improve the relationships between Russians and Americans?

They already do. I think, when everyday Russians watch Americans on YouTube, they understand how much in common we have. And vice versa.

SAP Global Survey: Martin Malý, Czech Republic

               [ Martin Malý. From his file]

 

Martin Malý is among the best known bloggers in the Czech Republic and founded  Bloguje.cz, the first and most popular Czech blogging platform. He insists he is not a geek, pointing to his many diverse interests, he says the compelling evidence is told me the most compelling evidence is that he does not like Star Trek. The other side is that he was an early Czech computer user, he first got onto the Internet in 1996 and built a Geocities web site and he programs in several languages.  He is also a pragmatist, hoping that the so-called social media revolution does not bring false hopes to an emerging nation where the average office worker still makes about 1000 USD a month.

Martin's overall summary is that to date, social media has not much changed life and business in the Czech Republic.  But then he notes that blogs have caught n and that young people are embracing social media.

Because of Martin's fondness for detail, this interview has been condensed in a few places. Here's his story.

1. Can you tell me a little bit about the Czech Republic?

It is a small country situated in the middle of Europe, bordering on Germany, Austria, Poland and the Slovak Republic. The  Czech Republic has about 10 millions inhabitants in an area area comparable in size to Panama or Ireland. Until 1993, the Czech and Slovak Republics were one federation, called Czechoslovakia and was part of the Eastern Bloc, countries held under strong Soviet control until the communist imperium failed and went away in 1989.

After 1989, the Czech and Slovak Republics opened their borders and started to integrate
into the structures of the democratic world - the Czech Republic has been a member of the NATO since 1999 and of the EU since 2004.

2. Tell me about technology. How many people use computers and cell phones? How many have Internet, broadband or wifi access? Do they have connection at home or at work?  Is it expensive?

The Czech Republic has three big cell phone operators but this was not always the case. Back when we just had eurotel in 1995, a cell phone was a status symbol. In 2000, a third operator named Oskar entered the market, GSM prices immediately fell. The cell phone became just the utility. While we regard them as just a handy thing now, we love them nearly to obsession. We have 12.5 millions registered cell phones, 25% more phones than people. We buy ringtones, wallpaper and Bluetooth accessories. Men between 18-40 years want to have the  most advanced phones with all the technologies producers can integrate into them.

Everyone uses SMS. Last Christmas, Czechs sent about 60 million text messages. Some people use their cell phones for accessing the Internet from GPRS to the CDMA, EDGE or 3G. It's estimated that about .5 million people, or 5% of our population uses mobile connection.

With computers it's quite different. Czech society is divided into two groups: (1) people who aren't interested in the computers or actually hate them, and (2) people using them. The division is based today on education and age, but even less-educated people buy computers for their children.

About 36% of the households have  PCs. Just about 27% of  households have an Internet connection. More than half of those have broadband access - it's about 15%. Penetration of the broadband has rapidly grown in recent years (from 2% in 2003 to 15% in 2006). You can find  more at this site, and here but they are in the Czech language.

Is Internet expensive? It's an interesting question. The average monthly salary is about 1000 USD for office professionals like clerks. Most people, such as shop assistants and supermarket cashiers make 400-500 USD per month.

The cheapest PCs cost about 500 USD. Notebooks start at 1000 USD. A basic TV costs about 250 USD and a 2L Coke 1.5 USD. The most common Internet connection (ADSL, 2Mbit/512kbit) costs about 15 USD per month. There are cheaper WiFi providers (about 6 USD per month) or cable TV Internet providers.

Internet connection is not so expensive, but many people still think "it's useless, it's  expensive, it's not interesting, it's a toy for parvenus..." - mainly the countryside inhabitants and uneducated people. But those  people can sit in a pub and spend up to 5 USD for beer and cigarettes each day - it's not rare, it's maybe about 20% of the population.

Many Czechs use Internet for personal reasons at work. It's one of the Czech bad habits. Each server administrator in the Czech Republic knows that there are two peaks of the server load: in the morning (office holders "start to work" with a cup of coffee and favorite pages) and between 2pm-4pm (Czechs feel the end of the working hours is near, so they don't start any new tasks. They just pass their time net browsing, waiting for the end of the working hours. They are sometimes able to wait nearly two hours).

3.  Tell me about yourself.  When did you first start using social media? Why and how did you start? How has it changed your personal or professional life?

I started to use computers in 1985. My first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum (although Czechoslovakia was a communist-held country, there were about 100,000 owners of small home computers like Sinclair, Commodore or Atari, and we joined in many local clubs. My first contact with the "world online" was in 1992 - with the BBS. In 1996 I tried the Internet for the very first time. There was nothing there but Yahoo!, Altavista and IRC. My first social network was the Czech Channel on the Undernet IRC. As time passed I tried maillists, discussion servers and other "proto-social media."

Yes, these things changed my perspective. I can find people with the same interests or opinions much easier than in real life. I met my wife on a dating website, which is as social as media gets, isn't it?  l

In 2002 I started a blog and in 2003 I created the Czech republic's first public blog system, in part because Blogger.com had fundamental problems with accented characters.

My platform, called "Bloguje" (this word means"(s/he) is writing a blog" ) has become well-known, beating competitors by technological advances such as SMS and MMS blogging, videos and so on). I left it a short time ago, to put my time and energy into new projects.

4. Overall, how important is social media in the Czech Republic?  How many people are using social media tools? What languages are being used on social media?

Social media is not dramatically important in the Czech Republic. Czechs take it like other things on Internet, more as fun than serious. There are some localized Czech social media sites. The best-known Czech language are:

• lide.cz ( "the people") One of the first Czech social networks, founded in 1998. It provides personalized home pages with photos, messages, lists of friends etc., as well as blogs, chat rooms,the user forum etc.  Lide.cz has more than one million registered user profiles (10% of the population).
• seznamka.cz ("the dating office") - social network primary focused on making acquaintances.
• spoluzaci.cz ("the classmates")  It's a place where people can find their classmates, talk with them, arrange alumni meetings, or share photos or documents.
• libimseti.cz ( "do you like me?") ihas 200,000 daily visits, provides similar services to Lide.cz.
• Clones, often as parts of big portals or web news servers. There is a tendency to try to offer everything on one big site.  We have three big portals, each with its own e-mail, blog system, web journal, search engine, catalog, map server, multi-language dictionary, social network, ad network. Then there are three big newspaper sites, which tend to offer it all as well.  Collaboration is not usual on the Czech Internet.

The language used in the Czech social media is mainly Czech. Only a few people from the Czech Republic use global services, such as Orkut, MySpace or Facebook (although there are about 5000 Czechs registered on Facebook). The biggest issue is the language barrier.

Only a minority of Czechs speak English, because English was "an imperialistic and enemy language" until 1989. Until then, Russian was the only obligatory school-taught language, English was a second language taught in high school. But the situation has rapidly improved in recent years. Many young people speak English now. It is obligatory in our basic schools. Even older Czechs learn English now because of their jobs.

But English remains a foreign language, so we're a little bit socially isolated from the rest of the world.

5.  What social media tools are being used in the Czech Republic and by whom?

In short I can say that the "pure social media tools" are used mainly by young people, mainly teenagers, just for fun (sharing information about "funny cool videos", parties, music, disputating if Nokia is better than Sony Ericsson etc.) Older people, looking for serious communication and contact, use the traditional ways of introduction. They look for web pages corresponding their "taste" and use forums or mailing lists to communicate to each other.

There is no call for social media tools in the Czech Republic. Older people prefer face-to-face meetings in the real world, and younger ones use the traditional Internet tools,  rather than social media.  If they want to meet new people or so, they use web chat servers or public or private discussion forums.

In the last years, new communities have started to form around blogs. Bloggers communicate to each other via blogs and sometimes meet in the real world as well, in the same way communities based on profession or hobby have risen around a meaningful web/blog.

6.  What about young people?  Are they embracing social media faster than their parents? What do they use and who do they talk to?

Young people use the social media, but I can't understand why.  I can't say what is the reason they use it. When I look at the Czech social media, I notice it's meaningless like, hmmm... like the MySpace  :)  It's just another thing appreciated in the teenager's world they can show and boost their own status in the society with; "to have an own profile" at a social media web is something like "to have a branded t-shirt" or "to have a really coooool ringtone in the cell phone". It has no other sense. They talk about the things important in the teenage world, you know, like
everywhere on the globe.

7.  Has social media changed culture in the Czech Republic?  How so?

I don't think so. Internet has no big influence in all, most people aren't interested in the Internet's things. The rest of the people, who know and use Internet, are mostly information consumers, just reading Internet magazines and newspapers or looking for some practical informations. Only a small part tends to use social media.

The only "new media" with some influence are the weblogs. Some of them are widely read, some of them have already been published, one blog has its own TV representation.

8.  Can you describe to me the Czechoslovakian business landscape?  What are your biggest companies? Where do most people do for a living?

Correction: There is no "Czechoslovakian" since 1993. The biggest companies are the Czech Railways (about 70.000 employees), the Czech Post, Skoda (Czech automotive manufacturer, a member of the Volkswagen group) and the Czech Energy Company (owner of the power plants). Many people work in minor plants of multinational companies (Philips, Toyota etc.), mostly on the hand-worker positions.
There are about 500.000 people employed in the (local or state) government structures.

9. Have businesses started to use social media? How so?

I don't see such a movement. Some companies try shy experiments with social media, but they are limited to deal with the "P.R. weblogs", "Pay per recension" or "advertisements in the social networks". But these attempts, and I must say "very naive and thin attempts", are often denounced very soon (mostly by bloggers) and their effect is uncertain.

10. SAP, one of the world's largest software companies has contracted me to conduct this survey.  How could they use social media to help their customers in the Czech Republic?

Oh no! No more "corporate social media", please! :) Czechs are very sensitive to such tends, hating the attempts of "corporate human face." They feel the "corporate spirit" and stay awake: "Beware! Someone wants to blame us!" I really cannot imagine how SAP can use social media to help their customers.

In my humble opinion - maybe they have to focus on the courses and educational activities. I often see advertisements like "We're looking for SAP R/3 specialists" in the newspapers, but no "Course for SAP..." offers! I would be the first one being interested in suchcourses to make my wife happy with such a huge salary being offered to SAP R/3 specialists in our country! :)

10. Additional Comments?

The Czech society is very ambiguous. There are very clever people in the Czech Republic, with God-given improvisational gift, craving to the new technologies, travelling around the globe, communicating and thinking in the global context, active and well-educated, but a little bit disqualified by their origin (some people around the world say: "Czech Republic? It's a part of Russia, isn't it? There was a war at the end of the 90s, wasn't there?"). For instance - NetBeans, the well-known IDE for Java, was developed by the Czech programmer Roman Stanek (later bought by Sun).

On the other side you can meet sour and unhappy people, unwilling, unpleasant (mostly at the offices or in the shops), simple-minded, envious flunkies, hating all the things they cannot drink, eat or boast about; often happy when other people feel as bad as they feel. You can reply that such people are everywhere, but this is very intensive in the Czech Republic. This is the first thing the foreigners notice when coming to the Czech Republic. Maybe it's a relict of the communism, who knows...

But - I think Czechs are the same like the other (Western-) European people, with the same worries and pleasures. Maybe more cautious due to their terrible historical experience. They still think of Internet like of something "above the standards", something "from the higher society". Internet isn't percepted like an ordinary thing, lets say TVs, DVD players or cell phones. So this is the first reason why social media isn't so evolved in the Czech Republic.

The second reason is the language barriere. People like to communicate in their language and the abroad English-speaking services have a big disadvantage because their UI is (in the most cases) in English and their developers can't often imagine that there are languages using more than 26 characters in the world.

And last but not least - remember that the Czech Republic is a small country. Ten millions inhabitants, about million can work with the Internet, only a few thousands "active netizens"... There isn't a space for big, ambitious or innovative social media int
he Czech Republic. But I think there is a lot of space for the Czech mutations of tried English projects, which can attract theusers and "learn to use social media".

A Perfect Day to read Mayke's Book for Children

[ Here You Are, a children's book by Mayke Beckman Briggs. Photo by Shel]

Scoble had a moving post today about how this was the first 9/11 he remembered, probably because he has a son due to be born tomorrow. Until I read it, I had forgotten the sorrowful anniversary.  I had had a particularly tough day.

By coincidence, the very next thing I did was to open up a recently received Here You Are children's book my talented and passionate friend Mayke Beckmann Briggs had self-published. Mayke, a mother of five kids is both the author and illustrator and both the illustrations and text are works f authentic beauty.

I had read Here You Are in draft form a couple years ago when her confidence was being eroded by a gaggle of self-important consultants who want her to change her magical book nto something that was more commercially acceptable, something that might have a cute pink bunny in it or whatever.

I urged her to ignore that advice, that the story she had written was unique and special. That is what she did. To the best of my recollection, the story and art she showed me then is what the book is now.

Here you are, asks a question that every child and most adults ponder--often without finding a suitable answer--"Where am I." Mayke gives a true and touching answer.

Yes, I want you to buy her book. Buy one for each of the kids in your life, I don't care what age they are.  The book will work.  Buy and extra for yourself as well. I'll stake whatever reputation chits I have with you that you will not regret your decision. You need paypal to buy online right now. But if you email me, I'll send you mailing information so you can buy by check.

Why is this day particularly appropriate to post this?  because today is a good day to salute the beauty of life and of what is in a child's heart.

SAP Global Survey: Argentina's Ignacio Escribano

   

           [Argentina's Ignacio Escribano. Photo by Shel]

The term "Renaissance Man" is most often used to describe Leonardo Da Vinci, because of his contributions to multiple disciplines including art, science and philosophy. Certainly, Argentina's Ignacio Escribano, who heads the citizen journalism project for La Nación, Argentina's national newspaper has not equaled Leonardo's. But his has been a diverse path that shows a restless interest and contributions in as many categories.

Trained as a doctor of internal medicine in 1995 and planned to be a psychiatrist, a lucrative field since there seems to be a huge demand for Argentinean shrinks. Before returning to school,however, he went on a backpacking bicycle vacation to Patagonia. "There I knew my destiny was something different than being in a hospital.

Ignacio decided to become a freelance journalist instead. He contributed to several prestige publications including the Spanish language version of the Miami Herald as well as La Nación.  In 2003, he wrote a piece for La Nación , observing the irony of two statues in front of Argentina's argest public library. One was of Evita Peron, who once said: "Shoes yes. Books. no." The other statue was of Pope John Paul II, then head of the religion followed by most Argentineans.

The editors spiked his story. Frustrated, he stopped writing, taking a scholarship to Cambridge University where he studied Buddhism and Hinduism for six months. Curious what life was like in countries, where the culture was not dominated by Catholicism, he spent the next 18 months living as a house guest with people he met in Germany, Sweden and England. He found more free thinking in these cultures than in Argentina and the experience and his dedication to spirituality shaped his future.

Eventually returning to Argentina to meet up with his Indian guru who advised him to become a recording artist, he started singing Latin music and playing guitar with prominent local musicians.  They cut an album which is selling well but not well enough to pay the rent in Ignacio's apartment.

At about that time, he met up with Guido Grinbaum, but we'll get to him in a moment. Bear with me through this aside.

Until now, I have been publishing the SAP Global Survey in a straightforward Q&A format, conducting all previous interviews by email. To my pleasant surprise, respondents keep changing how they've responded. Ignacio became the first to decline an email conversation, saying his English was not good enough, which is untrue. He added that face-to-face and phone interviews, such as we've now conducted were more human, which is entirely true. Of course, this way, I have to work harder.  In the end, our four hours of conversation has built a friendship that promises to endure and makes the effort worth the investment and then some.

Now back to our story...

With about 40 million people, Argentina is among the world's 10 largest countries. It is also geographically among the longest. From it's northern border to its southernmost point is a distance equal to the distance between Moscow and Madrid. One-third of the population lives in Buenos Aires. Ignacio is among them.

There is a significant, and growing middle class, but from one-third to half of the population exists below the poverty line. Broadband in home and office is growing but relatively slowly, even among middle class people who already have installed TV cables. Home connection is over $100 monthly and is significantly slower than in the US.

Argentineans, for the most part, use "Locutorios," for connection. These are former phone call centers that have evolved into computer cafes where people can connect at an affordable hourly rate. This is very similar to what I have witnessed in both Ireland and Italy and I imagine is pretty common worldwide. Locutorias are pretty much ubiquitous, at least in Buenos Aires. People use computers there for email, downloads, research, chat, printing and game playing.

Bubbleshare and Flickr are both popular photo sites, but music and video downloads are less popular. Many people fear downloads will deliver viruses, so they still buy music CDs, which they consider safer.

In July 2006, Ignacio met the aforementioned Guido Grinbaum,founder of Deremate.com , which is sort of the South American eBay. When La Nacion corporate, whose primary property is the newspaper Ignacio that motivated Ignacio to leage Argentina in anger three years earlier, bought the auction site, Guido was put in charge of all digital operations. Guido invited Ignacio to run a new citizen journalism and social media site to be called Igooh. The word loosely translates to mean "transform from the darkness." 

Two months later, Igooh was born on the first day of South American spring. Ignacio picked the day for symbolic reasons. He remembered at quote that he had seen in 1995 or so when he was was a hospital volunteer in Boston: “All the flowers may be cut, but spring cannot be stopped.” 

If there was some cutting to be done, it would come from his former colleagues on the traditional journalism side  of La Nación where blogging and social media are disdained to say the least.  The online  version of the newspaper stopped allowing comments on the request of the journalists. This is not as odd as it may sound, says Ignacio. "I play music for the musicians in the room," he told me. "Our journalists write for their bosses and for their fellow journalists, not for the people. So they don't want to hear from the people."

Ignacio's former colleagues do not take Citizen Journalism sites like Igooh seriously. Now that it is receiving about 180,000 unique visitors monthly, such disdain may subside. Except for a recent and mysterious plateau, readership has steadily risen in the year since its inception. By contrast, La Nacion has remained steady at about 175,000 daily readers over the past year.

Igooh posts about 40 articles every day, written mostly by middle class Argentinians between the ages of 30 and 40. They write mostly about politics and current events. People share personal--often intimate--stories and occasionally post a poem or song.  There are some photos, but mostly it is text posting. Video and audio clips have not yet arrived.

Ignacio is the designated face of Igooh. "If people see me do it and I am comfortable, it invites them to do the same." He is Igooh's most frequent contributor, rebutting editorials he disagrees with, posting photo essays and personal interviews.  He writes only in  a first-person voice and he is often quite intimate in what he has to say.

He sees key differences between citizen and traditional journalism.  Ignacio has faith in people replacing editors as fact checkers. There is no place at Igooh for the backroom politics that motivated Ignacio to quit contributing to La Nacion in 2003. He prefers the voices of everyday people to the more polished tonality of the pros because he hears the ring of truth in them.

Like most of the world's sites, Google directs the most traffic to Igooh, sending it 70 % of total readership. Only five percent come from banner ads at the regular La Nación site. Igooh doesn't know much about its own demographics.  It has yet to install Google Analytics or similar services. It's charter is to provide a social network as well as citizen journalism, but that part has not yet started.

Ignacio believes that social media's ability to let any person publish and any voice to be heard represents the most important social revolution since Gutenberg, " but revolutions take time," he told me, "perhaps decades."

In fact, my conversations with Ignacio have demonstrated that revolutions move at different paces in different places. No US journalist laughs at or disdains the impact of social media. There are no traditional media companies dismissing what's happening on line as a passing adolescent fad anymore. When I met Ignacio and Eduardo Lomanto, a business executive for La Nacion, back in July, they were both shocked, when I said that I doubted there would be many metropolitan dailies printing papers five years from today and many would simply be out of business. Their mouths opened in harmony when I said many people doubted that either the Boston Globe or San Francisco Chronicle could survive through 2007.

In the US, my observation has been heard many times and no one considers such statements surprising. In Argentina, the concept of a world where trees are not cut down and smeared with ink then distributed by machines that burn gas is still astounding and futuristic.

"In Argentina, we are about five years behind the US," Eduardo told me. "That's why we are here--to talk with people like you so that we can understand or own future."

My free-for-what-it's-worth advice to Latin American and for that matter European media companies is to pay very close attention to what is happening to traditional US media companies. My advice in countries accustomed to monolithic top-down information controls is to heed the words of Bob Dylan.

The times they are a'changing and they are changing faster than you may realize.

iPhone & Facebook: The Fun Factor

I've spent too much time this week end playing with my iPhone. Or maybe, it was not enough time, depending upon your perspective. For the first time ever, I see a future in which the only computer I need to have with me all the time fits into the palm of my hand.

But that's not my key point. My key point is that I had a great deal of fun learning how to be more productive with this incredible elegant tool. My wife, who usually ignores my gadgets and gimmicks for about two years, is already looking at it with a slight gleam of envy.

That brings me to Facebook. I also feel  spend too much time on Facebook, until I realize how productive it is.  I've been on it less than two months.  I have received three speaking invitations, two new business inquiries and at least 10 leads for my SAP Global Survey.

I have never had a more productive business tool than Facebook is turning out to be. Never.

The common thread between facebook and iPod is that they are both fun. They both have addiction encouraging qualities.  They both improve communications and did I mention that they are both fun?

Did anyone out there ever call Windows fun?  How about your online checking program?

When something is fun you use it more. When something is fun and productive it changes the world just a little bit. If stuff like this keeps coming out, then I might become as certifiable geek as Scoble is. As an aside, Robert, it just dawned on me that your new son is scheduled to come into the world on Rosh Hoshanah, the Jewish New Year.  That makes him an honorary Bagel Brother. Mazel Tov in advance.

Win a free ticket to TechCrunchh40

    [Pat Phelan (l) & Irish wannabee companion.  Photo by Paula Israel]

My friend and occasional client Pat Phelan at Roam4Free is just giving it away.

The  first-everTechCrunch40 conference in the SF Palace Hotel is fast approaching and is likely to sell out, even though tickets are $2500 a pop. Pat is launching is long-awaited products at the conference and I guess he wants as many supporters as he can get.  I'll be there and I'm one of them.

Not only is Pat trying to get people to talk internationally nearly for free, but now he's giving away one free pass to the conference. All you gotta do is tell Pat a story.

It figures.  He's Irish and he loves a good story. BTW, I'm pretty good at story-telling and I know what Pat likes pretty often.  For a small fee, I'd be happy to help you write to Pat on why you should get the free ticket. And you can afford it, with the money you will save if you win.

Office 2.0 & the electrifying Kool Aid Test

I consider Office 2.0 to be sort of a sobriety check for those of us who regularly drink the Social Media KoolAid too deeply.  Last year, I was scurrying all over the US and Europe talking about a conversational revolution, and then attended and spoke on a panel at Office 2.0.

The first thing I had noticed was the paucity of real corporate types at the gathering.  There were 600 folk, all wanting to tell the enterprise about the bevy of wonderment headed there way, and there were far too few enterprise decision makers there to listen and even consider what we had to say.

Not so this year. There were at least 100 people representing Global 2000 companies. And they were not just there to pick up the free iPhone or PlayStation you got as a registrant, they were there working the problem.  They were not their considering IF they should adopt some social media. They were even past the "how part.  They were working the problem of how to make social media programs more strategic, more effective, more responsive to customers and collaborative internally.

Just when people like me feel like we have been hollering in a hurricane, it is heartening to see that maybe we were being listened to after all.

I was fortunate to moderate a panel on social computing that seems to have been well-received.  JD Lasica gave a great summary here and Forrester senior analyst Jeremiah Owyang had some kind things to say here as did Tris Hussey at Blognation.

Gotta go stir up some KoolAid now.

SAP Global Survey Office 2.0 Talking Points

I'm hosting a star-studded panel on social computing at the Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco this Thursday.  In my opening comments, I will have a mere five minutes to address the SAP Global Survey, which has taken a good portion of my attention over the past two months. Here are my preliminary talking points, but I may need to do some speed-speaking to get it all in.

• In June, SAP asked me to do some traditional research on social media to help them be a thought leader on the subject. I suggested that because social media involves adhering to cult of generosity, I should conduct interviews, like I did for Naked conversations—transparently on my blog.  Less than a week later, SAP VP Mike Prosceno sent me the following email: “It’s a go.”

• In two months, I’ve interviewed over 40 people in more than 15 countries. I’ve posted more than 40,000 words on subject. Spoke with world famous bloggers, high school kids, Cambodian NGO workers, and Ukranian Citizen Journalists.

• Survey took on a life of its own illustrating the community powers of social media. In the beginning I was structured. I sent email questions that people were supposed to send back. Instead, they posted the answers on their own blogs. People I did not interview, rolled their own questions and posted or sent them back. Joe Thornley sent a video clip. Others started asking my questions on my behalf on Facebook and sending me answers. Some folk thought I asked stupid questions and changed them, then answered. It has become an open source survey in every way.

• Too early for conclusions.  But here are some early findings.

• Social media is active and growing on all continents and most major islands of the world.
• As innovators start looking past blogs, blogs are taking off in the enterprise.
• All social media tools get adopted first by non-corporate users, then seem to catch on in the enterprise two years later. Video is hot now among consumers. Watch for massive corporate adoption in 2009-10.
• Social media tends to start with kids. Think of what that means to your enterprise moving forward.

• The universal tool worldwide is the social network. It is being adopted by consumers and businesses everywhere in both localized and global forms.

That brings us to today’s panel. Introduce:

• Anil Dash, Vice President, Evangelism, Six Apart
• John McCrea, Vice President of Marketing, Plaxo
• Adam Nash, Senior Director, Product, LinkedIn
• Shiv Singh, Enterprise Solutions Director, Avenue A | Razorfish
• Athena von Oech, Director of Advocacy & Support, Ning

SAP Global Survey: Alex De Carvalho on Brazil

                       [Alex de Carvalho. Photo by a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/hyku/">hyku.]

Alex de Carvalho is the Community Guy at Scrapblog, where I have been consulting. As the interview will reveal, he knows a good deal about the comparative cultures of the world. I turned to him specifically for his significant understanding of what is going on in Brazil, South America's most populous country. The answer is a great deal and Alex has some good advice for companies hoping to do business there.

I'll let him tell you.

1. Alex, you have lived in more places than just about anyone I know. Can you give me a summary?  Can you also tell me a bit about how these cultures are the same or different?

Well, my father is a retired Brazilian diplomat, my mother is from Finland and I was born in Paris. We moved frequently and I spent my youth in Algiers, Accra (Ghana), Teheran, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Helsinki and Miami, where I attended high school and college. I later completed an MBA in Fontainebleau (France) and then lived in London, Chicago, Setúbal (Portugal) and Paris before moving back to Miami.

From having moved so much, my experience is that everything can change from one day to another and we are susceptible to even small changes in the environment, in politics and in the economy. The world is not so small and not so flat and there are new places and ways of seeing and doing things waiting to be discovered by each one of us. We should celebrate and preserve these differences, for they add variety to life. Beyond these differences, though, we all have similar dreams, goals and emotions which transcend geographic barriers and cultural differences, like raising a family and living in peace.

2. When, why and how did you first become involved in social media?

Through a combination of experiences and circumstances, I was looking for greater authenticity in online marketing. I had worked in advertising agencies and co-created an e-mail marketing company in France, based on Seth Godin's "Permission Based Marketing" concepts.

It made sense to market to people by getting their "opt-in" first, rather than interrupting them with commercial messages.

The change came when I read the Cluetrain Manifesto and then stumbled upon IT Conversations and started listening to podcasts all the time. This brought me quickly up the learning curve on Web 2.0 and I started my current blog in mid-2004. I adopted various social tools and started to connect with people around the world. Soon after, I started posting photos on Flickr, started a second blog, joined different social networks as they were created, including LinkedIn, Orkut and Facebook and started bookmarking on del.icio.us. I also joined the WeKnow guild in World of Warcraft and explored Second Life.

Blogging, social media and game play allowed me to meet and exchange ideas with brilliant people around the world. Paris has an outstanding blogging community and bloggers organize weekly events and meetups. I also attended great conferences in Europe related to the Web 2.0, including LesBlogs in Paris and Reboot in Copenhagen.  I currently lecture at the University of Miami on Social Media, covering online identity, community building and citizen journalism.

3.  Tell me about Brazil. Who uses technology in Brazil? What do they use? How much of the country has broadband connection?

Although I don't live in Brazil, I try to keep up-to-date with the Brazilian blogosphere and social networks. I organized the Brazilian delegation at the World E-Democracy Forum in Paris and was brought up-to-speed on the use of technology in Brazil. I was surprised to learn that Brazil has one of the largest electronic voting populations in the world, with over 120 million people who vote electronically.

Apparently the voting system uses open source code, so it can easily be audited. During elections, voting machines are even brought to remote villages in the Amazon. Most Brazilians --90% of them--file their income taxes electronically. Brazilians have one of the most advanced banking systems; they can access some of their medical records online; and they can get informed and participate in local municipal and school board decisions online.

Most recent figures indicate Brazil has Latin America's largest online population, with about 16 million monthly unique visitors. That's only 10% of Brazil's population. Nearly a third of those are using broadband, so there will be considerable growth ahead.

4.  How popular is Orkut in Brazil? Why do you think it became so popular? Why do you think Facebook adoption has been so tepid there and do you see Facebook adoption increasing?

Social media in Brazil revolves mostly around Orkut and the photo sharing sites Fotolog, Flogao and Flickr. Orkut is the most visited site in Brazil and over half its members are Brazilian.

Orkut made explicit the social graph: writing scraps (messages) on each other's profiles, leaving testimonials and being a "fan" of someone made social relationships apparent. Now people make plans and keep up with each other through the scraps. "Scrapping" on Orkut has replaced emailing in many cases. There are also thousands of communities and some of these are very large, with many that have over a million members.

A quick search on Alexa shows that Facebook does not currently rank within the top 100 sites visited in Brazil. I think Facebook's current potential in Brazil is limited because its navigation is more text-intensive than Orkut and the applications are all in English.

Orkut has been translated to Portuguese and its Scrapbook is more prominent than Facebook's Wall. Also, Orkut's communities are more active in general than Facebook's and threads are easier to follow.
But social network adoption is difficult to predict and Facebook may gain popularity in Brazil as it continues to grow elsewhere.

5. How is social media impacting Brazilian culture?

If you're online in Brazil, more likely than not you're using at least one of the popular social media sites mentioned previously. Brazilians are also active bloggers. Orkut in particular has entered popular culture through songs and through frequent mentions in the press. The site has also replaced emailing and phone calling for keeping in touch with friends and for making plans for going out and for the weekend.
On the negative side, there have been isolated cases of illegal activity on Orkut and there tends to be a lot of spam if you're a member of large communities. Many have decided not to join Orkut for these reasons, as well as to protect their privacy, identity and safety. In general, though, Brazilians are outgoing and those online are using a combination of Orkut, photo sharing, instant messaging and Skype to keep in touch with each other.

6.  How big a barrier is language on the Internet?  What percent of Brazil speaks English?

I am not sure what percentages of Brazilians speak English, but language is a significant barrier for a large proportion of Brazilians online and most would prefer to navigate and communicate in Portuguese, given the choice. Generally speaking, English is still a competitive advantage at work.

7.  Tell me how business is using social media in Brazil--if at all?
What tools are the most popular?

In my experience, Skype and instant messaging with MSN have been popular in Brazil for connecting with others professionally and for project management and collaboration through chat and VoIP. Some CEOs have started blogging and this may also become a trend. I've also seen some Brazilian businesses and brands in Orkut and in Second Life. A lot of this is still experimental, but Brazilians spend a lot of time online and they tend to pick up quickly on what works and what doesn't.

8. What about young people? Is there a division between people under
25 and over?

Brazil's population pyramid is shaped like a pear and the under-25 represent a large proportion of the overall population, perhaps about a third. I don't have statistics on who's online; from my experience on social media, I would say that the under-25's tend to use Orkut and Fotolog more and the 25-45 segment is on Flickr or is blogging.

9.  What advice do you have regarding social media to multinational enterprises wishing to do business with Brazilians?

I would start by listening to the conversation. Do searches on Technorati in Portuguese and on Orkut to see what's being said about your company and products and to see who your fans are. Get in touch with them and start a dialog. Be sensitive to cultural differences, hire Portuguese speaking community and outreach managers and translate everything to Portuguese, or at least provide help in Portuguese.

Assist them with their questions and ask them for feedback. Help them become evangelists when appropriate by supporting their community building efforts on Orkut or elsewhere. Consider bringing the conversation to your own space by starting a blog and setting up forums where users can help each other. Run promotions and be generous with your evangelists and those getting the word out, but always be transparent in your actions. Finally, make it easy for Brazilians to purchase securely online using their own credit cards and banking systems.

10.  How will social media evolve in Brazil over the next five years in your opinion?

Because Brazilians spend so much time online, I think Brazil will track closely with what's happenning elsewhere. Broadband penetration is rising rapidly in Brazil, so probably video and photo sharing sites will do well. Google is well accepted, Orkut recently launched and new 'Web 2.0' look with rounded corners and RSS feeds and Brazilians are very active on YouTube.  Social media is evolving quickly and many of the same tools will be picked up or adapted by Brazilians online.

11. Additional comments?

Yes, I would like to add that social media has opened many doors that for many historic reasons were restricted mediawise:
- The democratization of speech through free tools that allow people to publish, collaborate and organize with each other online
- The possibility to access knowledge and information and to share opinions with people from other cultures
- New rules for advertising and consumerism, because people are savvy, they are protecting their rights and they are having conversations

Tumaini Kids Use Running & Blogging to Connect with World

My Singapore friend Ivan Chew, the blogging rambling Librarian, found the Tumaini Kids blog and was inspired to dedicate this great original song to them. The best way to get the whole story is to see the YouTube clip produced by the two women, who met at Stanford Univeristy, bummed around the world before stumbling across the Tumaini Children's Center, which houses 170 orphans and "vulnerable children in Nyeri, Kenya.

The two started the Hope Runs project.  They now live at Tumaini and train the kids in running. They hope the sport will connect the kids to people in more developed nations and they look for small donations and used sneakers to help their kids. There's also a social entrepreneurial thread that runs through what they are doing.

The blog is amazingly articulate in the postings apparently by teenage Tumaini kids.

I'm not sure if this should be considered part of the SAP Global Survey, but it certainly is a great example of how social media is impacting culture and changing the world.

SAP Global Survey: Hugo E. Martin

[Hugo E. Martin from his personal file.]

Of all the people who have been the most generous to me in this SAP Global Survey, Hugo E. Martin, is at this point #1. He has introduced me to people in Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic Ukraine, Bulgaria and Croatia, giving this survey insights that, when published, will help you understand the strategic importance to this rapidly emerging sector of the world.  In this interview, he explains why social media is so much hotter in Central Europe than in Germany. Thanks again, Hugo.

He has also been more generous than anyone so far in offering suggestions to SAP on how they can use social media to do a better job.  Thanks again, Hugo.

Hugo can best be described as an old-timer in publishing, marketing and the Internet. In 1978, he CHIP, the first German computer magazine CHIP. In 1981, he helped American  tech publishing legend David Bunnell and Tony Gold start of PC Magazine in the US.

From 1993 to 1998 he spearheaded the internationalization process of Vogel Media Group and helped to build, and managed publishing houses and publishing ventures in 12 countries, including China, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Greece, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam.
Today,he consults media, IT&C and internet companies in Europe and Asia.

1. When did you first get into blogging and social media and why?

I first read about Weblogs in 1999. I started talking and writing about their use and benefits in 2002. That was when my colleagues and friends tried to push me  to start blogging. But, at that time, many of my clients had ‘just learned’ about email & e-newsletters, and our CMS was serving my needs for publishing on our websites.  I had no problem to solve with blogs. Whenever I wanted to, I could get something in print.

I saw no reason to blog. Of course, I read, cited and pointed to blogs. My colleagues and I discussed regularly, whether the time was right to replace my regular weekly newsletter with a blog. Finally, in November 2004, we decided to go ahead and publish a regular blog while maintaining our monthly newsletter. Only this past summer, was I brave enough to drop my email newsletter and concentrate exclusively on writing my blogs, delivering new posts via feeds with a weekly summary per my newsletter.   

2. What social media tools do you use?

Most important for me are feed readers and tools to organize and publish feeds to websites, applications and store and retrieve them on databases. My main tool for accessing and reading is still Bloglines. I also use Google Reader, MyYahoo, Netvibes and others, but not on a regular basis.

My Blogs are on Blogger. I have posted more than 2.000 times in less than three years. I’ve written some on WordPress and other platform and use Tumblr (but mostly for aggregation).

I use video sites--mainly YouTube--and to a lesser extent I use Flickr for photos and I still use IM a lot. To serve international needs, I use Trillian and Skype.

I have experimented with some wiki systems including MediaWiki, SocialText and Jotspot,  but in my work, I use any wiki-software my clients want to use.

In 2004 I started to use social networks like Linked-In and OpenBC / XING (and I still do) and checked out others. Today, I am more on Facebook and MyBloglog. I like the ‘ambient noise’ of Facebook, which gives you the feeling of being connected and I wait for the Jabber/Lluna project to become real so I can reach friends by cutting through the space-time dimension.

I have used del.icio.us and digg as social bookmarks. After my favored tool for subject-oriented bookmarking ‘crispynews’ folded, I did not find a replacement, so now I worked around that with Tumblr.

3.  How has social media changed your life?

It has not changed my life.

Both my business and personal life are very internationally oriented. Internet and Mobile communication helps me ‘entertain’ my network much more easily. My day on the net starts in the morning with Asian friends and ends late at night, or early morning, in America or Asia.

On the German business sites, social media is going quite slowly. Most publishers here are not convinced about the need and benefits--or perhaps, it is anxiety and/or the hope it might soon go away.  Businesses are very reluctant to use social media themselves and prefer ‘their specialized people’ to take care about that. Not all, but most if them. One Example: you hardly find comments on my blog on publishing – the standard response comes by phone or email and business people don’t want me to make their comments public.

4. Tell me about social media in Germany.  When we wrote Naked Conversations we could find very few blogs (I apologize for missing yours).  But have blogs evolved?  What about other social media tools such as social media, wikis and online video?

There are still many fewer blogs in Germany than in US, France or in Poland. There are many reasons (excuses) for that. First I think, many Germans do not like to expose and express their opinion, except when they are asked do so, and it is safe to do so. Second, the media landscape in Germany is quite diverse and in many flavors, so there is little room and need for alternative media (although some of my colleagues would disagree). Third, most of us use new things only if we know about the benefit and can easily explain it to anyone who might (or might not) ask. Of course, we also have our early adopters here, but you Americans outnumber us in that respect.

There are many different figures about how many blogs there are in Germany. Between 350,000 and 1.5 Million. In May 2007, our Burda Communication Network found 1.1 million German bloggers. Is it important? Are the active? What is active?

There are business and corporate blogs, but they remain small in numbers and maybe that is a good sign. As far as you can see from the outside, too few business, companies, organizations blog inside and/or in their private networks.

All social media tools are available. Most people understand enough English to use international versions, and, like anywhere else, for all categories, we have many local equivalents. Often those are  clones.

• Business Social Network: LinkedIn – XING
• Students Social Network: Facebook – studiVZ
• Picture sharing: Flickr – Sevenload, Photocase
• Video sharing: YouTube – Sevenload, MyVideo
• Social Bookmarking: del.icio.us / digg – Mr. Wong / Yigg

If the benefit of social media becomes apparent to Germans, then I think usage will pick up fast. 

Example: Wikipedia is one of the top social media applications in German-speaking countries and with 630,000 articles. We are just behind English (1,950,000) and ahead of French (550,000) and Polish (420,000).

5.  You blog in two languages. Why did you choose to do that and how does it work for you?  Other than language, what similarities and differences do you find in the people who join your conversations in the English and German versions?

My website always had more visitors on the English version and on my subscriber list for our newsletter I had more people interested in the English (international version), than in the German version. Therefore, my alternatives were, to write in two blogs or to write bi-lingual. In connection with dropping the newsletter, I asked my readers about the language-mix:

0 percent voted for ‘I am only interested in German posts’
6 percent voted for ‘I am only interested in English posts’
13 percent voted ‘Split it into two’
81 percent voted ‘No problem.’

So I think it works fine for my readers. The patterns of communication are not different than in real life. In English “Hi Hugo, I agree, disagree …”, in German “Sehr geehrter Herr Martin, in Bezug auf ….”

6.  You took issue with comments Loic LeMeur made during my recent interview with him regarding what's happening in Central Europe.  Can you tell me your perception of how social media is evolving in that region?

I pushed Loic once to include Central Europe and Russia (CEE) into his list for Reboot, Copenhagen, so I tried again. Social media in CEE countries is much more “in place” than in Germany and it is much more needed there, as well. CEE is “more social” and the cultures have extended their communication onto the net and into mobile.

Some examples:

• The Russian press is mostly ‘guided’ and ‘owned’ by the state, so the opposition and the intellectual elite need and use social media (particularly blogs) for discussion.

• Social Networks are spreading in the Baltics where you have over 90% of the younger ones in social networks. Mobile internet access plays a leading role.

• Heavy personal use of social media in Poland, the opposite to Russia. Polish people look at Western applications. Google leads search in Poland by far and has less than 1/3 market share in Russia.

Business wise, as far as I can see, social media has not had a strong impact yet, but it will take off, if there are localized versions serving business needs.   

Not to forget, there are still strong handicaps like access, speed and cost of Internet and lower incomes. However, I am convinced that they will not follow us for long, but will take a short cut. 

7. How is business embracing social media in Germany and Central Europe?

Business is  embracing social media rather slowly.

I think the first reason is that social media enables business to do something they do not feel a strong need to do and do not know how to do. Second, is the contrast between the picture consultants paint of social media as sexy and ‘nice to have’ and the horrifying picture an observer gets of social media being a chaotic, abusive, dangerous, uncontrollable and sometimes even criminal environment.

To penetrate business, social media needs an approach of solving needs & wants business people are aware of and see as either mission critical and/or incorporating tools and practices that are successful in everyday business practice.

This would be a worthwhile job for SAP.

8.  What about young people?  What are the hot social networks?

Although the use level cannot match  Korea and Japan, social media and social networking are already big and growing fast. It's different in different countries as is the penetration rate of Internet access which varies from 10 to 60 percent.

You will talk to some of my CEE friends, so I'll give you just a few interesting examples:

• In Poland, the No. 1 Communicator is Gadu-Gadu with about 5.5 million users. Skype has about 3 Million. Poland claims 15 percent of their Internet population blogs.  By contrast, Romania less than .5 percent.

• In Russia, LiveInternet is the most popular network. 2nd is LiveJournal and 3rd Mail.ru ,and of course they have, like most other countries, their homemade clones, for Facebook e.g. fakultet.ru and vkontakt.ru. 

• In Germany, we have just less than 2 million students, and more than 3 million members on studyVZ.de the German Facebook, we also have a strong community on MySpace and growing fast on Facebook

9. How can SAP use social media to improve its practices in Germany and
Central Europe?

My SAP-experiences-- as a user, a system house, a publisher and as a consultant are maybe a bit out-dated. Let me just name a few areas that I think they should examine                   .

1. Internally, SAP staff and management are using social media (like Blogs & wikis) in a big way for their business, but missing out to provide this features and tools as natural basic components of their software. I would suggest SAP take more care of their clients' basic needs.

2. If you get your WordPress / Socialtext / 37Signals, etc. application offers, when you start thinking about SAP (and you find out that your staff uses them already in their daily life) than  SAP has an easy ‘educational job’ creating value by giving a helping hand and first-hand experience. When I talk with corporate clients, SAP does not come up as a social media service provider or even the provider of choice. Just take a look at the SAP Global Website . It is still ‘prospect ware’ it its best – o.k. , they have a ‘contact form’ you can fill out.

3. If I were still a publisher, I would like SAP to deliver my services directly to SAP’s client desks. And I’m sure, SAP clients would like it as well, because their staff would have the information they need for business delivered to their needs and wants. The companies advertising their products and services to B2B would like it. They can finally reach anyone involved in the buying process  at a reasonable cost and the B2B publisher should like, because the have a superb and cost-effective way to service their client (readers & advertisers).   

But I better stop there, you have the contract with SAP.

[Shel's Note:  There was no need to stop there. SAP contracted me and the transparent approach to the study knowing full well they might be paying to see themselves criticized. The people I worked with want to know what people think and i was assigned to find out.]

10. Additional Comments?

In Social Media all should pay their entry fee, be of value to the community and get (based on the value they deliver) invited again. We are much closer to a social media environment, if the User is the one who benefits most, the author / original producer second and the service provider can ‘make a living.'

Scoble reflects on David Boschmans' death, ponders meaning of true friendship

I didn't know David Boschmans, the Belgian blogger who died unexpectedly at age 32. But he had been Scoble's host in Brussels. Scoble write elegantly about the meaning of life and the differences between "real" and online friendships, a subject on which Scoble and I continue to disagree. But that makes me no less sorry for his loss and for the loss of david Boschmans' two-year-old daughter and wife..