Slow Food and Wine at its Best

Below are a few interviews and takes from last week's Golden Glass Slow Food event in San Francisco.

Also check out my blog post from the event, which is full of photos of the best in slow food and wine, and includes entertaining sommeliers and chefs, largely from northern California.

BRAND YOU Book Signing in Dorking

David Royston-Lee will be at Waterstone’s in Dorking, England on Thursday July 2, 2009 at 5pm for the launch of his new book: BRAND YOU. He will be speaking for 40 minutes before answering questions and signing books.

Voyij Adds European Destinations: Tons of Deals Under One Roof

Client Voyij.com, the most comprehensive site on the web for travel deals and sales, has now added European destinations.

For the first time, travelers now have one central location where they can discover the widest variety and largest number of European travel deals and specials under one roof.'

The concept behind Voyij is simple. Voyij fills a void on the web that people want: “what travel destination is on sale today?” With Voyij, you can explore and discover travel sales and deals you never knew existed independent of origin, destination or dates.

Other travel sites concentrate on real-time inventory and the few that do focus on deals have substantially less offerings, focus on one aspect of travel but not another, i.e., hotels, or do not include filters so you can narrow down what you want.

Travelers simply enter the city they are leaving from and Voyij does the rest. You can choose to review the deals and specials that are on sale that day, which is a compelling part of the discovery experience Voyij offers. Because the site grabs deals from hundreds of travel suppliers, you often learn about destinations and deals you never knew existed and from sites you never heard of.

Additionally, Voyij goes one step further. If you choose to narrow down your scope, a second step allows you to filter by region, time of year, popular destinations, hotel star ratings, beach hot spots and more.

These features are particularly useful for European destinations where popular hot spots are often more expensive and booked up months in advance during the summer months.

My Stroke of Insight Makes NY Times Bestseller List

I first heard Jill Bolte Taylor's remarkable story about her stroke when she spoke at the TED Conference. Her talk blew the audience away, not surprising given her remarkable tale, one which has both inspired people and provided incredible insights for the world of medicine.

Her new book My Stroke of Insight is receiving positive acclaim worldwide and can be easily found on the web. For those who haven't seen her talk at TED, you can view it here.

For more about what she went through, the Q&A below recounts her story and some of the feelings she went through while she was going through the stroke, as well as a deeper look into the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Q: You describe the series of strange sensations your body was going through the morning of the stroke. At what point did you realize how serious the situation was?

A: From the moment I woke up with a pulsating headache, I was aware that something was not right. While in the shower, when the sound of the water surging into the tub knocked me over, I was aware that I was having a major neurological phenomenon. However, I did not realize that I was l was experiencing a stroke until my right arm went totally paralyzed by my side.

Q: What was your immediate reaction?

A: When I first realized that I was having a stroke my left hemisphere brain chatter said to me, “Oh my gosh, I’m having a stroke!” Immediately following that, it exclaimed, “Wow, this is so cool!” You have to understand that I had spent my entire life studying the brain from the outside in. On that morning, I had an opportunity few scientists will ever have – the ability to study their own brain from the inside out! It was a fascinating experience…through the eyes of a trained scientist.

Q: As a neuroanatomist, you're an expert on the brain. What was the most unexpected thing you learned from actually having a stroke?

A: I did not realize that I was capable of experiencing bliss and deep inner peace. When my left hemisphere and its ongoing brain chatter became completely non-functional, I shifted into an incredible state of euphoria. It was a really beautiful experience that I was not aware of ever experiencing before.

Q: What helped you the most during your decade of recovery?

A: I owe my entire ability to recover to my mother GG Taylor. She came to my side immediately, and recognized that I was now an infant in a woman’s body. Even in this completely debilitated condition, she treated me with respect and together we embarked upon trying to figure out what my brain cells needed in order to recover health and function.

One of the most important things we did was that we focused on my abilities rather than my disabilities and we gave my brain the sleep it desperately needed in order for the cells to recover. In addition, we did what we needed to do to take care of my brain, realizing that if my brain cells were happy and functional, then I could be happy and functional.

Q: Now that you've experienced living in your right brain, can you go back to that euphoric place at will?

A: Yes, the beauty of our brain is that both of the hemispheres are always active so the bliss of my right hemisphere is always a circuitry that I can tap into. I believe we all have this ability.

We have the ability to choose to pay attention to the circuitry of our chattering left hemispheres and attend to the details in our lives, or we have the cognitive ability to change what we are thinking about, choose to take a pause, take a breath, step back and look at the big picture of who we are and what are we doing here as a magnificent life force power in physical form.

We are always using both halves of our brains and we make choices thousands of times a day about how we want to perceive something. An easy example of this is listening to a piece of music. You can choose to listen to the piece as a whole creation or you can choose to focus on each of the instruments playing its line. You can choose to listen and think with language, or choose to think and interact with the ongoing kinesthetic stimulation your body is receiving.

Q: You're still a neuroanatomist, and you remain affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine. How has the stroke changed your approach to studying and teaching about the brain?

A: I have a very different perspective of myself in relationship to the external world and I am no longer worried about or focused on my own personal gain or value.

As a result, I have shifted my concern to the students and the quality of their education. I teach them about the value of compassion and about the choices they are consciously or unconsciously making day by day. I try to instill in them an awareness of their responsibility for how they present themselves to their patients with the hope that they will become more caring physicians.

My interests in research have also shifted away from choosing to work in a lab environment where I spend endless hours in isolation, to working with helping others find the resources they need to recover. I have become much more of a humanitarian.

Q: And what can your readers learn from your experience?

A: I believe that this book is of tremendous value to anyone who has a brain that they would like to create a better relationship with. Caregivers of anyone who is ill will walk away with a shifted perception of what the brain needs in order to recover and a toolbox of recommendations to help someone in need.

Anyone who has experienced a brain trauma of any sort will also be armed with real strategies to help them help themselves during the process of neurological recovery. Spiritual seekers will better understand the neurocircuitry underlying the ability of our brains to have a spiritual experience, and how they can work with themselves to shift their own perceptions.

People who are extremely right hemisphere dominant find validation as to why “they are the way they are” and that it is healthy to celebrate that. Also, anyone interested in learning more about how to “get their brain to do what they want it to do” will rejoice in the cacophony of practical information.

Future of Online and Mobile Video Distribution & Monetization Strategies

The UCLA Anderson School of Management and the German American Business Association (GABA) are hosting a panel discussion with top digital media executives and venture capitalists followed by a reception at the UCLA Faculty Center, on the future of online and mobile video distribution and monetization strategies in North America and Europe.

The event will be held at the UCLA Faculty Center on 480 Charles Young Drive in Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 starting at 7 pm. You can pre-register here.

Despite the rapid online video adoption, achieving profitability continues to be a challenge for many content creators and distribution companies.

Panelists include:

Brett Brewer - President of Adknowledge, a performance-based advertising network; Myspace (Intermix Media) Co-founder (acquired by News Corp) & Advisor at Crosscut Ventures

Curt Marvis - President of Digital Media at Lionsgate; Curt oversees digital distribution at all Lionsgate divisions, the company's stake in online video hub Break.com, the FEARNet VOD/Internet channel, as well as the new EPIX online streaming venture together with Paramount & MGM

Mark Suster - Partner at GRP Partners with ~$1 billion under management, previous Founder and CEO of Koral (acquired by Salesforce.com) and BuildOnline (acquired by SWORD Group)

Frank Chindamo – President of Fun Little Movies, the first company to make comedic movies for mobile; FLM won the Content Award at Cannes and the Mofilm Award at GSM and airs on Sprint, MSN Mobile & the iPhones

Michael Metzger (Moderator) - UCLA Anderson Alumnus; GABA Board Member; Vice President at New Century Capital Partners - a digital media focused investment banking firm

The panelists will share their vision of the future of mobile and online video and cover topics including:

--Key success factors for content generated by users, independent producers and the major networks

--Distribution strategies on an individual brand’s site, video portals, mobile carrier’s deck and social networking sites

--Most effective methods for monetizing video content in North America and Europe

--Exciting opportunities for entrepreneurs and video content creators

How Obama's Antitrust Policies Could Impact Silicon Valley's Economy

If in the Bay Area, come watch Gary Reback, author of the new book Free the Market and Michael Arrington talk about how the Obama Administration’s antitrust enforcement policies will affect Silicon Valley’s economy.

At the Computer History Museum on June 30, Reback and Arrington will explore President Obama’s commitment to innovation along with his promise of renewed antitrust enforcement to make predictions about how the new administration will answer important questions.

They plan to draw on accounts of leading high tech lawsuits involving top companies like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and AT&T. His new book paints a tableau of government policy gone awry.

GasPedal Event: Corporate Social Media Success Stories

I attended the Gadspedal BlogWell event yesterday in San Francisco, which covered 8 case studies in four hours about how corporations are using social media in innovative ways.

I was interested in listening to all of them however due to time constraints, they divided the floor so you had to choose which one was more relevant for you. Unfortunately, on nearly every occasion, both choices were relevant so I missed half the stack.

They didn't have the Twitter protocol posted where it was easy to find, so sadly, none of my tweets made the pool, but there's a bunch of two liners from various speakers out there in Twitterspace somewhere.

The line-up was top notch and included the likes of enterprise players like Cisco and SAP, as well as consumer and SOHO-facing offerings from PepsiCo and Intuit.

Cisco's key takeaways:

*Listen to the conversation

*Include blogs as part of your communications strategy

*Spread workload amongst team

*Be ready to address risks – have your policy at hand

*Inform and involve your executive team

*Incorporate video and audio

*Optimize your content for search

*Issue a social media release

*Stay focused on your business goals – customer successes

A lot of these points are pretty basic and are not new tricks we haven't already heard. The thing that really hit home was the importance of integrating them with a strategy in place. I say this to clients all the time - what's the point of using social media tools unless it's helping us meet our overall business objectives?

That leads to measurement which came up in the Q&A of every session. People want to know how these big players are measuring the ROI of these campaigns and in some cases, how and if they're planning to generate revenue as a result.

The less complex the corporate structure, the less complex the story, which leads us to the SAP presentation. There was likely a ton of really great content and examples they could share, but sadly they tried to pack "it all" into PowerPoints that were rich with jargon, heavy text and graphics.

SAP's Mark Yolton

He also flew through the text-heavy slides so I missed more than half the content and because the volume of content overtook the value of it, I didn't leave with a sense of what was relevant to any market.

Then again, I'm not a big PowerPoint fan. Pictures and "painting stories" through powerful words, demonstrations and examples go such a long way.

So, in a long ramble, I got that they do a ton of events, build communities, core contributors power their communities, their reputation management system rewards members for behavior and contributions, they offer exclusive content like how-to guides, white papers and newsletters and that there's 70 SAP mentors they tap into for advice about their policies and procedures.

SAP communities deliver customer value, customers benefit from participating and partners get insight from what is going on inside the SAP marketplace. And so, their social media strategy is what exactly?

Intuit's talk hit home for me largely because they used tons of examples of what tools they used, when and why. Through reaching out to small businesses asking for their own core stories, they generated evangelists without asking for them.

Intuit's Christine Morrison

They are integrated social media tools into their products, such as QuickBooks. Imagine that you're a small business owner and have an issue or problem - QuickBooks finds like-problems to help you solve your own more easily.

Dell too has successfully jumped on the social media bandwagon. Dell is reaching their customers on social media platforms like YouTube, flickr, Facebook, Delicious, and Twitter.

"Change starts with content and that content needs to be flexible and modular - shareable, embeddable, and syndicatible," said Dell's Lionel Menchaca.

They are modularizing content through tags, widgets and RSS feeds and using it to populate topic-based Activity Streams.

Adds Lionel: “People actively re-tweet our tweets as well as RSS feeds. If the customer has comments, questions and ideas for new content, they’ll tweet it.”

Their real time activity streams come from blog posts, ideas, Twitterstream, comment information stream, forum threads flickr images, YouTube videos, Delicious and podcasts. They're focused on producing content and moving content out to where it’s relevant.

I wish I could have attended more sessions as there's always so much to learn from what companies with larger budgets and resources have tried and tested and what has worked and failed. David Spark also has a great write-up of the event.

GasPedal holds a number of interesting events on this topic if you want to learn more.

Craigslist Foundation Bootcamp: Contribute & Give Back

The Craiglist Foundation 6th annual bootcamp had an interesting line-up of speakers and panelists from volunteer and non-profit worlds this past weekend in Berkeley.

The wrap-up panel included: Craig Newmark, Arianna Huffington, founder of Action Without Borders Ami Dar, AllforGood's Jonathan Greenblatt, Rich Harwood of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, Shirley Sagawa, co-founder of Sagawa/Jospin Consulting, and Steve Wright, Director of Innovation for Salesforce.com Foundation.

Wright says, “I’m hoping for the day when marketing becomes synonymous with truth telling. Ultimately that’s really where we have to be. We keep borrowing stuff from the corporate sector. We have to have more real value in decreasing poverty in the same way that a corporation generates real revenue. It has something to do with competition and something to do with collaboration.”

Harwood talks about the fact that all of this is just a journey and you have to keep moving forward, applying different approaches along the way. In other words, our work doesn't end. He says, “there are ways we feel that we have to tell stories. It holds greater meaning from what you learn throughout the journey."

Greenblatt says, “so much of the innovation is happening at a grassroots level. Here’s where technology comes into play to help empower you. Using social tools like Twitter and open source tools, it becomes bottom up. Throw your API out there when you build things. The point here is that this revolution is not going to happen top down, it has to happen bottom up." He adds, "keep driving change in your own communities.”

Ami Dar reminds us that it can't just be about the technology. He says, “it's really about the people. We’re almost over emphasizing technology. The Romans actually built an empire without Facebook. People are amazing. Technology is useful, but in some ways, technology is making us less ingenious. Technology is not the answer. We are the answer. Technology is just a tool.”

Wright pipes in, “I agree with that. With social networking, we’re still focusing on the node rather than the network. The power is the lines between the people. It’s in the relationship not in the individual. Even when I hear things through Facebook, it’s still push. One of the things we haven’t figured out yet, is how do we discover aggregate value. It’s not about the social networks, it’s about how do we discover what is of value in what people are doing.”

It's not just about service and volunteering to give back, it's about a commitment to a cause, something you are truly passionate about.

Craig shares jokes but there’s a serious sentiment behind them. He says, “in our case, Craigs List is like a flea market, a marketplace where people come to do commerce but also to socialize. People come together to do what they want to do. Build the right platform and then get out of the way. People will mobilize and generate their own communities.”

Arianna adds to the community thread, “we evaluate what is fun. Why is it fun to shop in a mall? I find it completely exhausting. People have more time on their hands, people watch TV, search on Wikipedia."

She asks, "What is it that makes people interested in something? The conventional ways of how people spend time are not necessarily how people may have the most fun.”

Overall, the pitch between the lines is: get passionate about something you believe in, have fun in the process, bring others to the table to do the same, give back and make an impact in the world. Contribute to something greater than yourself.

Techlicious Blog Unveiled: Tech-Savvy Friend for Women

The Techlicious blog was launched today, whose mission is to simplify technology, particularly for women.

They tout themselves as the tech-savvy friend women can count on for tips and tricks to get the most out of technology; whether that’s saving time in their hectic schedules, discovering new ways to enjoy their personal interests, or keeping up with the latest technology trends and styles.

As founder Suzanne Kantra points out on the site, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, women influence the purchase of more than 90% of consumer electronics, yet there is nowhere women can go to get straightforward advice tailored to them that is not overly geeky, snarky, or dumbed-down.

Techlicious simplifies things by cutting through the hype and technical jargon to give you the information you need, in language that's easy to understand.

The content will include how-to videos, new product and website recommendations, as well as useful tips for getting the most out of the products they already own.

Their Buyer’s Guides provide advice on choosing the right product for every lifestyle, and include recommendations at various price points. Techlicious also offers a community forum where women can get answers to their questions and share their own tips and discoveries.

NY Times Useful Travel Sites for the Practical Traveler

Client Voyij today makes the NY Times in a piece for the practical traveler looking for useful sites to visit.