down the avenue

Kelsey Group on Blogs, RSS, Social Networks & More

Check out Kelsey Group's line up on April 19 in Palo Alto. Sessions I would hit include:

Consumers and the New Multi-Channel Reality
The biggest gains online this past holiday season were recorded by traditional retailers, so-called “brick and mortars” that are more successfully integrating online and offline selling in response to changes in consumer shopping patterns. This panel of retailers will discuss the evolution of their online strategies in response to changes in consumer behavior.

Online Word of Mouth: Blogs, RSS and Social Networks
Word-of-mouth is probably the single greatest driver of referrals to local businesses. Over the past couple of years a number of firms, portals and publishers have tried to create or add online community features or full-blown social networking sites to replicate this offline phenomenon. More recently, the Internet has been abuzz over blogs. And marketers everywhere are tying to figure out how to tap blogs and RSS to get their messages to consumers. How is word of mouth manifesting online? Is it actually delivering leads to local businesses? How should search engines, directories and classifieds publishers react? What are the implications for current business models—online and off?

SXSW on Emerging Tech & Music.....

I'm missing another fabulous conference this week....Austin-based SXSW has a fabulous line up and its on my calendar not to miss next year. One of my favorite speakers -- Malcolm Gladwell -- is speaking.

There's also a fabulous session on Monday March 14 called Blogging While Black.

A brief on the panel here:

"Although there are literally hundreds of black blogs today that were once bound together by color and attitude, their communities have diversified to encompass other social networks within the larger weblog world. Panelists will address blogging while black and discuss why the active community of black bloggers get very little recognition outside of their own social network."

There's also a discussion on Blogging Without Borders, where they'll look at citizen journalism at its core, blogs, microcontent management and where things stand in the rest of the world.

The line-up is packed with great content. If I were not in the middle of moving house, I'd be on a plane to Austin and stay for the music as well.

Post Drum Circle Happiness

After Mickey Hart's Drum Circle at TED this year.

Joseph Mouzon, John Girard, Renee Blodgett and Adam Schechter.

Digital Living Room is On

I wish I had time to go to Digital Living Room this week in San Francisco. There are great speakers including Sony Picture's Yair Landau, WSJ's Walt Mossberg and RealNetworks' Rob Glaser.

It's about the convergence of......entertainment, computing, software, hardware, consumer electronics, analysts and journalism.

It's also about HDTV, digital video recorders, television, cable, telecom, broadcast, media centers, recordable DVDs, games, music, platforms, broadband Internet, ethernet and WiFi, video-on-demand, multiplayer and next-generation gaming, media center PCs, mobile and wireless, converged devices, streaming and downloaded music and video, digital rights management and whoahhhhh, am out of breath already.

It's an exploding space and worth checking out.

VON & VoIP on the West Coast

If you're in the Bay Area and at all interested in VoIP: the future of, the trends of, the impact of......check out VON this week at the San Jose Convention Center. Client Teleo is in the Global IP Sound booth, #629. Companies use GIPS SoundWare to bring the highest quality VoIP-enabled products to market.

Wurman's New EG 2006

Richard Saul Wurman just announced the latest line-up of speakers for his new conference slated for Feb 1-3 in Los Angeles. EG 2006 stands for Entertainment Gathering and is all about Entertainment As Understanding.

I don't really see this as competition to the current TED frankly - I think it may attract a different audience, although some Tedsters will likely attend out of curiosity. My vote is to go to both since they're both great meetings of the minds, creative energies and intellectual personalities.

Tom Fantana and Wired Magazine's Chris Anderson are already on the list as are architects Frank Gehry and Moshe Safdie, as well as Jeffrey Katzenberg and MIT's Nicholas Negroponte. It's a year away so stay tuned for more updates as we get closer.

Brains Working Overtime at Final Dinner

On the last day of TED, many East Coasters, Europeans and Bay Area fans of the ocean, gather together for one last dinner, usually an intimate affair at some designated restaurant in Monterey. I met more Brits than previous years, which is always a positive thing.....and we used crayons a lot, another great thing.

Ask Jay Walker what the end of the night conversation was about; something we all feared would end up on a TED stage one day and something I'm not allowed to disclose......yet.

TED After & During Hours

Once again, we had our high powered gals lunch at Cafe Fina this year, which overlooked the bay. This event is co-hosted by Sunny Bates and Time Out's Cyndi Stivers every year at TED.

It's a wonderful way to connect more intimately with woman, since its still at a marginal 20% (my guess, not actual stats). It's always a great mix of women across entertainment, technology, design and the arts......photographers, designers, entrepreneurs, VPs at significant technology companies.

A few shots for the archives.

And a few Crown & Anchor (also a tradition every year) shots for the archives.

Jay Walker and Robert Tolmach:

TED Global's
Bruno Giussani and me:

Hot or Not with Biz Stone of Google.

John Wilczak and introNetworks' Kymberlee Weil:

Cheskin's Lee Shupp:

eBay's Pierre Omidyar and Louis Monier:

Harvard Symposium on Media, Technology & Common Good

After getting two emails from Boston-based friends who have been freezing and shoveling snow for weeks, I am reminded about a fabulous Media Center event at Harvard this week: Whose News? Media, Technology and the Common Good.

The audience and speakers are a wonderful blend of content, solutions, media......the list goes on, including New York Times Digital Editor-in-Chief Len Apcar, Boston Channel.com, VP of Strategic Planning at Comcast Ty Ahmed-Taylor, Wonkette's Ana Marie Cox, one of my favorite people and analysts Rob Enderle, Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin, Yahoo Editorial Director Bill Gannon, Jeff Jarvis, AP's Jim Kennedy, Craig's List Craig Newmark, Jay Rosen, Executive Editor of MediaChannel Danny Schecter, Halley Suitt and David Weinberger, among others.

The symposium will be based on cross-sector discourse, conducted U.N. style, with participants seated in a U-shaped arena for discussion. Three dialogs will be held, each focused around an inflection point in media, technology and society. Wish I were going to be in Boston for this one.

In Awe of Pilobolus

Photos from a few earlier TED posts are now up, including Evan Williams, who made the New York Times last week with the launch of Odeo on the TED stage.

There was also the intro to Pilobolus, how they began and the symbollism behind their dance.

Surreal & Wonderful Moments

Last week, I spent time talking to Paul Sereno, President and Co-Founder of Project Exploration, also Professor at the University of Chicago. It cost $10K to ship a dinosaur from Chicago to Monterey since insurance for something this valuable and fragile is so ghastly.

Describing TED moments is often difficult to do with people who have never been....this was one of them. We're hanging out with Paul at an Irish Pub and he pulls out a 110 million year old Suchomimus dinosaur claw. (he's holding it below).

And then, Ze Frank has people in stitches in the corner, MIT's Rodney Brooks also has people in stitches from their a spoof on the new iRobot Roomba Discovery Floorvac, Tom Reilly walks in with powder still on his face from a fabulously hilarious end of TED routine where he imitated the breathtaking Pilobolus performance.

And that's right after hearing the brilliant mathematician Arthur Benjamin, the national security strategist Thomas Barnette (who also ended up on our Sunday hike), and Eva Vertes, the 19 year old teenage researcher who wants to put an end to cancer.

San Fran Chronicle TED Recap

A fairly lengthy post TED article in the San Francisco Chronicle on its compelling nature. The article leads with Bono calling people to do not just dream.

And it ends on an extremely positive note:

"Not many other conferences could assemble a set that entertains, educates, provokes and flat out inspires attendees with the feats humans, nature and technology are capable of."

Okay, now onto more industry and social issues and conferences. TED 2005 photo album to be posted within a couple of weeks.

Bono's Three Wishes

U2's Bono speaks up. He talked to us at TED via satellite about his goals for cleaning up and wiring Africa. ABC News (via AP) also picks up his story.

He starts out by saying what gets him really turned on about the digital age, the digital revolution. "Technology has closed the gap between knowing and doing. Technology has brought prices down and Imagination has been decoupled from the old constraints," says Bono. "I would like to see idealism decoupled from the old constraints."

He speaks of his journey, which started twenty years ago with Bandaid, the summer he went to Ethiopia for the first time. Anyone who has ever given something to Africa gets a significant amount back. Having lived there a few times in my life (Kenya and South Africa), I agree.

"In Ethiopia, a man gave me his child, asked me to take the child back to Ireland with me," says Bono. Why? Because he knew the child would not survive there and would stand a chance if he left the country. Hard to resist a dying man's face, hard to pass up and yet he did. Wouldn't most of us? How many of us would completely change our lives in the face of such a request and bring an African child back with them?

Yet, the feeling never went away. "This is not about charity," says Bono. "It's about justice. Justice is a tougher standard than charity. Africa is in flames and I'm trying to call in a fire brigade......we would not allow what is happening in Africa to happen anywhere else."

Unless it looks like an action packed movie (Tsunami, War in Iraq), we tend not to jump up and say "enough is enough." He chose his words well when he said to a TED audience, "this way of thinking offends the intellectual rigor in this room."

We all know that poverty breeds despair and despair breeds violence. Isn't it better, cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to protect yourself from them later? We have so much to learn.

Bono brings up "Brand USA," and how damaged it is abroad -- too few in this country realize this. Too few realized this when I lived in Europe ten years ago. Too few Americans ever truly know what the perception is because we're so isolated over here, despite the content that is available if we choose to go digging. It's always been like this.

He impresses everyone with his articulate and passionate speech. He's authentic, doesn't use notes and is dramatic at all the right places....."Our generation," he says, "is the first generation that can look poverty and disease in the eye and say, 'we do not have to stand for this.' This is the moment you were designed for, the ideas you thought about in your youth. Because of us, we can change not just the digital world, but the physical world." And this is nothing but honest: "We're afraid to get too excited about making a change even if we realize we have the potential to, because once we acknowledge that we can, we MUST do something about it."

Hell, my feeling is that if we know we can fix something this grossly unjust, we must. It is about turning idealism into action. Idealism detached from action is nothing but a dream. Idealism tied to pragmatism is powerful.

"The digital revolution, the war on terror and putting the fire out in Africa are three things we'll be remembered for," he closes with before he gives us his three wishes.

1. Help build a social movement of more than 1 million American activists for Africa. This will get the ear of Congress.

2. 1 media hit for every person on the planet who is living on less than $1 a day. We need to get these kinds of statistics out to people so they can understand how serious the issue is...and it must be described as an adventure rather than a burden. Bono clearly understands PR spin as well.

3. I want every health clinic, hospital and school in Ethiopia to be connected to the Internet.

Big dreams and big goals but only by voicing them and empowering people will change ever happen.
If we can, we must.

Winding Down in Monterey

TED is coming to an end. I'll post photos and more notes on some of the other sessions I didn't cover over the next couple of days. More social activities this afternoon, including a hike through a natural reserve, a walk on the beach - a long walk - and our traditional group dinner at the Montrio.

Ray Kurzweil on the Future

Every time I talk to Ray Kurzweil, I think of my large agency days when we handled Kurzweil's business in the early nineties in Boston. I also think of his talks over the years, at MIT, New England technology conferences, and TED.

It's funny.....despite the fact that I was also in the speech recognition business for many years, we rarely talk about technology or about speech. Ray's such a futurist, so I always crave new stuff, hearing what he's up to and the latest of what he cares about. He's on the TED stage again, appropriately in the Future Session.

He takes 150 supplements a day, a far cry from my 25 or so herbs and vitamins which most people find excessive. I'd love to exchange stories on what and why. I'm particularly interested in alkalinity.......the more alkaline I am, the more energy I have and the younger I feel. It's powerful.

A few predictions:

By 2010, computers as we know them today will disappear. We'll be interacting with virtual presonalities. By 2029, computers will combine the power of human intelligence with ways computers are already superior today by remembering billions of facts accurately.

Nanobots will clean up the environment and and go inside your brain and interact with your neurons. You will be able to plug in and see what its like to be someone else. Human life expectancy will dramatically expand because of the biotech and nanotech revolution.

Drum Circle with Mickey Hart

Last night's Drum Circle had amazing energy. Mickey Hart led us in a couple of hours of non-stop drumming on the beach; it didn't quite reach the trance stage, at least for me. It had the potential to though if we were not in Monterey and the police were not on their way.

Such a conservative crowd for any police force to worry. Sadly, I lost my phone 'somewhere' on the beach however and ya know, life is not quite the same without it.

More on the drum circle later with photos.

Bono on Africa

U2's Bono gave an incredible speech accepting his TED award yesterday in Monterey California, via satellite. He was eloquent, articulate and passionate about his goals, one of which is to wire every school, hospital and health institution in Ethiopia. And there's more. I managed to capture most of his talk and my thoughts and will post it within the next day.

Mickey Hart on Trance & Drums

I'm watching and listening to Mickey Hart, who is all about rhythm, emotion as it relates to rhythm and dance; rhythm and sounds; rhythm and visualization.

From the liner notes of Timothy Taylor's Global Pop:

"At the dawn of religion, the Paleolithic trance dancers gathered in subterranean temple caves for ritual celebration. The natural sounds of the caves were an eerie backdrop to the dancers. The echoes, the bats, the water dripping from the roof, the whaking of palm against stalagmite and stalactite resounded through the caves, creating unique percussive sounds."

A good description of how I personally felt being in Mickey Hart's presence today.

He talked a lot about trance, what he describes as a pulsating vibration that brings us into a different state, as if you're handshaking with the archaic. These powerful rhythms were brought to us by the slave trade......from Cuba, Haiti, Central America, 1800s New Orleans, Africa. Mississippi took it further up north to Kansas and Chicago. This is when trance rhythms took hold of America.

"This is what music is all about," Hart says. "This trance-like experience for me was what it was all about in the 1960s. It seemed like a good thing at the time. Now kids are taking over. I'm playing in a trance-band with 20 year old kids, kids with parents who are younger than I am. These kids were brought up in the digital age, so we're going to hear some dramatically new sounds from the next generation."

He also brings up the Drum Circle, which is truly an experience that will take you to a place beyond yourself. I've been there and I agree. He invites us to join him on the beach later tonight for a trance dance, participation in a Drum Circle and a fabulous party. More on this later, but not in real time. Forgive me if I leave my laptop at home tonight. :-)

Scott McCloud on Vision

Comic book artist Scott McCloud cracks a joke about his inventor father, and says he's the opposite of inventor Dean Kamon, who is the son of a comic book artist.

In a session on senses, McCloud has been asked to speak about vision; varying types he says - vision of the invisible, vision of what can already be proven and a vision of can be or may be based on knowledge but is yet unproven.

He makes several references to his father, who was blind and the context of which he looks at the world as a whole and the world of comics. He also makes references to his work in developing comics and how they relate to space. He says, "as we draw these stories on an infinite canvas, we are creating a more visual representation of what this medium is really all about."

On why this infinite canvas is important? "All media reports a window back into our world. It could be the motion pictures or virtual reality and these all provide us with escape from the reality we're in. Media provides us with a window back into the world we live in and when media evolves, the identity of the media becomes increasingly unique (comics are more comic than ever before), we provide many more views for people into their world, a triangular world that they live in, in which they can start to see new shapes in ways they have never seen before."

Charles Fleischer: A Comic Voice

Charles Fleischer, writer of Roger Rabbit and Prince and the Pauper is almost as 'out there' as Ze Frank on a stage. He has the TED audience in stitches.

He switches accents as quickly as he does images and colors on his slides as he glides across the stage. It's glide with tenacity. It's glide with passion.

"Anyone can suggest changing a name fellow members of the Earth Community," he says to the audience. He shows us a list of names - alien names without first names. But we can change that. He throws out in true manic comic style: It can be Jupiter Blonk or perhaps Mars Yamarov.

A taste of how and why we can't follow half the presentation and yet, every bit of it is funny. That's the purpose - there's nothing to follow, it's all material to react to quickly, provoke reaction, ensure laughter, and then move on quickly without a chance in hell to ever get bored.

Howard Rheingold Post SmartMobs

I love Howard Rheingold and the way he thinks; always have ever since I first saw him on the PopTech stage a couple of years ago. He's here at TED talking about his thoughts since SmartMobs.

He reminds us how much the world has changed. Today, every desktop is a printing press, a community, a TV and radio station or a marketplace.

He talks about the Prisoners Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons. The Prisoners Dilemma is about the payoff between two parties whereby each party does not want to give in. The idea is that each player gains when both cooperate, but if only one of them cooperates, the other one, who defects, will gain more. If both defect, both lose (or gain very little) but not as much as the "cheated" cooperator whose cooperation is not returned.

He then goes on to talk about how humans have so often destroyed the commons they have depended on. How they have escaped from this is to create new institutions for collective action.

He throws out the notion of open source and how many companies are turning to open source. New forms of cooperation create new forms of wealth. He claims that they have learned that a certain kind of sharing is in their self interest. Open source technologies, like Linux and Mozilla can be created without the formal infrastructure of the firm or the incentives of the marketplace as we have known them.

He says, "eBay solved the prisoners dilemma. You prove to me that you're trustworthy and I will cooperate." He believes the pay off will be huge, and that we should start mapping out ideas right away on how we can work together and cooperate for the greater good. He asks the audience to help him get the cooperation initiative started.

Once again, Rheingold is witty, amusing, and uses creative and colorful visual props throughout his talk.

Stan Davis on Human Species

Stan Davis, who is a Boston-based research fellow at the Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation is now on the TED stage.

Most known for his book Future Perfect, recipient of Tom Peter's Book of the Decade Award, he starts his talk by asking how many people in the audience believe in the evolutionary theory versus creation.

An overwhelming majority of hands go in the air and only four out of five believe in a combination of the two. Not a surprising result from this kind of audience, but clearly not representative of the general American public.

What he has heard here so far about how nature and biology relates to business is that biology is a metaphor and it's about doing good. He thinks that Biology will become the foundation of the next economy, not because its inspiring, not because its a good metaphor or because its about doing good but because economies will have to adapt. Biology will also lead us into a world that is simultaneously timely ordered and completely chaotic.

California Moment

I'm sure there will be plenty of California moments as a newbie to the area. Most drives have a view for example and its 30 minutes to a gorgeous coastline from nearly every point I have lived since I've arrived here. Last night after a cocktail party, I was escorted to a Jaguar with heated seats and no top. Just like every drive should be.

Playwright Anna Deavere Smith

Playwright Anna Deavere Smith is now on the TED stage. Dramatic and engaging, she wakes up the audience. Such a typical TED moment -- the session on risk taking jumps from a zany comdedian and entertainer to space exploration and building rockets to a playwright who is most known for her female plays about racial tensions in American cities.

She was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Foundation genius fellowship for creating “a new form of theater — a blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and intimate reverie.”

She starts by acting out the character of inmate Paula Jenkins on stage, an investigation of the negative imagination, but has been known to transform herself into up to 46 characters in one show alone.

The Colors of TED

Flat screens and Sony laptops surrond me, Ze Frank's pink and yellow website is up on at least two of them, the introNetworks site is up on a handful more. There's no Dale Chihuly glass in the main lobby but his books wait for us in our neon green backpacks.

Chris Anderson is on the stage in a bright yellow vest. The carpet in the lobby is a rich bright red and two versions of Steelcase chairs are spread throughout both seating areas, ones with orange fabric backs and plush ones in neon yellow.

Abstract paintings are scattered on every wall, a bird cage sits in the middle with small yellow and blue birds, flowers are on the tables, the man next to me wears orange pants, our badges are printed in red or purple, the magazine to my right is fuschia and silver, the book covers are electric and plants, mostly green break up sharp modern designs.

Ah yes, at a conference surrounded by rich vibrant color and not just in the visual sense, there is little black like you find at so many Internet and technology conferences. But there is some, enough to allow people to relax, while engage, laugh while stimulate and be stimulated. The floor is dark black brick as is the uniform of the security guard, who I don't remember being at the door to the main hall last year.

We now see photographs from China, Africa before them. The sounds amidst the colors are of the amazingly innovative voices, who are TED's choices this year.....thought leaders, those who want to change the world. We also hear the birds chirping in the background. Herbie Hancock, a regular TED fixture who did not come this year, is missed.

Two women walk past me, one with a bright red and orange purse and one with neon green shoes. It sounds like a Beverly Hills extravaganza but its not really.......visually its not quite that colorful, but intellectually it sure is. The collective creativity matches it.

Colors of TED.....won't you blend with me, roll with me, dance with me.

Elon Musk's New 'Space Life'

Elon Musk speaks in the risk taking session at TED about his new life in space exploration, which is his primary focus. I sat next to him in the second row before he jumped up on stage. He's incredibly youthful looking, much more so than USA Today makes him look about a year ago, in an article about his new venture SpaceX or Space Exploration Technologies.

So what's he doing now? "It sounds really odd to be saying that we're building a rocket in LA, but that's what we're doing," he says. The goal is to build it for a third as much as existing models.

Hell, if you were 31 and worth $200 million, why not work on what you're most passionate about? He is most well known of course for selling Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million and PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion.....I'm thinking - if you were co-founder, how did you only end up being worth $200 million after selling both of these successful entities...?

He shows photos and sounds of what he refers to as his lightweight rocket - Falcon 1, which is for satellite only.

He also talks about Falcon 5, which will be satellite and human transportation as well as a heavy lift vehicle that be something capable of carrying enough mass to establish a Moon Base or a Mars Base......."the internal code name we have for the big rocket is BFR," Elon says. Once completed, it will be the largest engine of any kind ever built. It's 100 feet high, goes 70 feet underground and will be capable of testing an engine that can stand 3 million pounds of thrust.

He's primarily funding it himself and I later learn as he sits back down, that he's South African. I spent a few years in South Africa, so have a particular passion for the area. Impressive. There's not many dot.com start-up founders who have this kind of goal.

On Ze Frank Humor

Ze Frank is on the stage for the second year at TED. Says his talk last year wasn't supposed to be humorous and then goes on a witty rant that once again has the audience laughing.

He mocks the hummer and comedians, does a spoof on U2 (ewetoo), conversations around water coolers, and his haikus for a newly newtered dog. I won't go there.

Ze says he was diagnosed with ADHD before it was hip and goes on to show a hilarious video of himself singing "sing-along songs" for children with short attention spans......

He kills Valentines Day......Having a holiday about love is hard because there's so much pressure. Saying I love you on February 14th is like going into the doctors office and saying I'm sick. Maybe that's whats missing from Valentines Day. Shouldn't we be giving gifts, flowers and love all year around and make Valentines Day "judgment day," where we exchange a card with a check box that says yes or no, signifying whether you want to stay or leave..........

Once again, he lightens the mood and leaves us smiling.

One more thing.........I mentioned when I wrote about Ze at PopTech in October that he was also hot. Four months later, he still is.

Benyus on Nature

Did I mention that this year's theme at TED is on nature? Who better to be in the first session but Janine Benyus, who together with James Watson, Brian Greene and Frans Lanting, is in the Foreplay session.

Benyus lectures widely on science topics and is the author of four books in the life sciences, including, Beastly Behaviors: A Watcher's Guide to How Animals Act and Why.

In Biomimicry, Benyus talks about scientists who are already discovering nature-based innovations that will change the way we grow food, make materials, harness energy, heal ourselves, store information, and conduct business. She's a fabulous speaker and most TEDsters could have listened to her for hours. Technology innovators (even Bill Gross) mentioned they got ideas from her presentation.

Her question to this audience was - how do we learn from nature when we're building, innovating and creating design and new technologies? She gives us a formula of 12 key things, including:

1. Self Assembly
2. C02 as a feedstock
3. Solar transformations
4. Power of Shape
5. Quenching Thirst
6. Green Chemistry, which is replacing our industrial chemistry
7. Timed Degrigation
8. Resilience and Healing
9. Sensing and Responding (without colliding)
10. Growing Fertility
11. Life's Design Brief is Simple
12. Life Creates Conditions condusive to life, i.e., it builds soil, creates water.

To close, she emphasizes: we have to find a way to meet our needs without exploiting the environment. For example, learning about organisms that can do without water to create a vaccine that doesn't have to be refrigerated.

Arriving in Monterey for TED

I pull into Monterey California this year for my 9th TED Conference, my first TED in my own car, rather than a rental I picked up at SFO.

I'm with TEDster John Girard and we stop for wheat grass and smoothies before registering.......once you enter the Monterey Convention Center, the chaos begins, starting with two massive bags of goodies from various technology and entertainment vendors.

Unlike early TED years or even a couple of years ago, TED no longer feels intimate and as renaissance-like, perhaps partly due to its growth. This year, the attendees are close to 1,000 this year, which is divided between the main hall which is live and faces a stage and the simulcast room, which is set up downstairs and has a number of screens set up for viewing. There are also laptops set up upstairs and downstairs for easy Internet access and exhibits, including a 100 million year old dinosaur, which was flown in from Chicago.

The Ethos water guys are back as are some other familiar faces from previous years. I ran into a number of TED virgins in the first hour alone.

Under new management, the aura is changing, as are the kinds of attendees, yet its still fabulous, remarkable and full of eclectic, interesting, intelligent people at every turn.

More Events....When Do They Stop

Back-to-back cocktail receptions tonight and they couldn't have been more different. SpeechTEK was held at the San Francisco Marriott and the annual Wired Rave Awards were held at the Fillmore. Since I'm new to the San Francisco social scene, I'm still getting used to California chic attire (more colorful than New England could ever handle) and the square shaped black framed glasses.

TED Around the Corner

TED starts this week, a conference I've been going to for about nine years now. This is the first year I won't have to get on an airplane to attend; its hard to imagine driving my own car and not a rental to the event.

It's also the first year I plan to blog the conference.....sadly the extent of my coverage will largely depend on how many power outlets the Monterey Convention Center has.

There's an interesting article in SF Gate on this year's talent and speakers.

The article starts out with the following question and ya know.....as a regular TED attendee, its a good opening. (there's a bit of a cult-like following btw; regulars call themselves TEDsters).. Here's his start: Where can you find James Watson, the Nobel Prize winner who co- discovered the structure of DNA, on a panel with an environmental photographer, a physicist, and an author of a book on nature? And where other panelists range from Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart to genome-mapper Craig Venter and playwright-actor Anna Deavere Smith?

The article refers to founder Richard Saul Wurman as an eclectic impresario - ya gotta love it. Richard (or Ricky as some of his friends call him) can't be disappointed with that description.

There are numerous TED moments, some which make you cry, some which are simply inspirational and innovative at the same time, some leave historical footprints. I was in the front row when Billy Graham spoke one year - if I recall correctly, it was in the same session as Oracle's Larry Ellison.

I was also in the front row when Herbie Hancock and Makoto Ozone did their duet that Quincy Jones apparently called one of the best two duets he has ever heard on a stage. Look for new TED moments from this year's event later this week and over the weekend.

Speech Recognition in Town

SpeechTEK starts today, a conference dedicated to the speech recognition industry. I was at Dragon Systems for years and before that, did some PR for Kurzweil when speech recognition systems were in the thousands of dollars and accuracy rates were painfully low.

For years, it was held at the NYC Hilton, but this year, its in my new town - at the Marriott San Francisco on Fourth Street. Tom Peters is giving the keynote and I'm actually registered as a blogger this year, or something like it.

I don't currently have any speech clients although I did represent a handful after leaving Dragon for a few years.......its hard to resist not going however since I've always been passionate about speech. Alas, even if to go down memory lane for a few hours.

WSJ on Bloggers Machine

Interesting. Last week at CPAC2005 (Conservative Political Action Conference), Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund got the heat from using a couple of machines belonging to bloggers, without permission.

Title of blog post from Crosswalk was a little bold: Blogger gets abused by Big Media Fund... Not so sure its abuse, but it is certainly lack of respect. The battle between traditional journalists and bloggers continues although it truly doesn't have to.

Relishing in Demo Kudos

Forgive the gloating here. Perhaps I'll come across as a proud parent as I glowingly list tons of positive press coverage and highlights from client Demo launches last week. It's hard not to....if I wasn't a believer, I wouldn't be here.

Client iUpload, is combining the strength of their content management background with corporate blogging in a way others in the market are not, with their launch of Perspectives. The result: tapping into and reaching multiple communities from inside one blog, doubling the power and reach of your marketing and branding overnight by empowering more authors to write. That's not all.

The view from Business 2.0's blog - Om Malik writes in his brief that iUpload is among the names you are likely to see make news in the next 12 months. Oh yeah, client Teleo makes the cut too among 7 names out of 74 who launched at Demo this year. I'm batting a good average.

The view from ZDNET's Dan Farber, on the Latest in Blogware. Dan's favorite concept was iUpload's Perspectives. He describes: you can use an iUpload blog to create and store content and then apply "perspectives," which allow you to instantly publish content from the blog to other sites or applications, such as salesforce.com, Plaxo, Yahoo!,Tribe, Amazon, eBay or Flickr. For example, you could write a book review in a blog and simultaneously post it to the appropriate Amazon page.

Dan also gives a plug to Five Across' Bubbler, which is a very different blogging concept and was pitched at Demo as the fastest blogging tool ever.

The view from CNN.com. Their take: Perspectives lets individuals communicate with other Web sites straight from their blogs. Users can pull their blog content -- whether it's a book review or a submission to a photo contest -- and send it to iUpload's online partners, which so far include auction giant eBay Inc., Web portal Yahoo Inc. and social networking site Tribe. More are signing on weekly btw.

The view from Ed Baig's USA Today.

The view from WashingtonPost.com.

The view from eWeek.

The view from InfoWeek.

The view from InfoWorld.

The view from Computerworld.

The view from blogger Jeremy Wright.

The view from Silicon Valley Watcher's Richard Koman.

The view from Forbes.com.

And a vertical market view.

And that's only in the first few days. Stay tuned for more on this space, partnerships and trends around what blogs can do for communities, for corporations, and for individuals.

Do's and Don'ts of Demo

David Hornik on a do's and don'ts of presenting at Demo.

Book Ideas

Those in the high technology industry may be familiar with the TED Conference, started by Richard Saul Wurman over a decade ago. Held in Monterey California every February, I've been going for years and always look forward to meeting a new cast of characters and speakers every year, as well as the opportunity to catch up with TED regulars.

Recently, they added a perk of sending attendees samples of books by leading authors and speakers on a variety of different topics. While I haven't had time to get through 50% of what has arrived on my doorstep over the past year, I still think its a good idea. Seeing the books on a table or desk are a great reminder to read topics you wouldn't otherwise explore.

BLINK, by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, will change the way you view your own thought processes and reveal the extraordinary power - and danger - of our intuitions. What I love about listening to Gladwell speak at any venue is his remarkable storytelling ability.

COLLAPSE, is the latest masterwork from another TED speaker and celebrated author, Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel. It expands on the detailed reasons behind the fall of past societies, with dozens of ominous lessons for our own.

There's a great read about him and his latest book in the Seattle Times, as well as a recent piece in The New Yorker.

IN PRAISE OF SLOWNESS, is a perfect antidote to the way most of us lead our lives. Journalist Carl Honore cleverly links together six different trends and urges us to celebrate slow food, try out tantric sex, change our work patterns to carve out more personal time, and listen to our children.

Post Demo & Photos Are Up

If it appears as if I have been a slave to the Demo process over the past few weeks, its because I have...preparing for numerous product launches simultaneously is time consuming and stressful, but the rewards after the fact are nearly always worth it.

For those of you who have launched products over the years know, it's only the beginning after the launch.....once the world knows about a new solution, its time to deliver and that means keeping customers happy once they're on board. More on that later.

Of course I don't have time to do this, but what I really feel like doing post Demo is taking a picnic to Montara beach and gazing at birds for a few hours............in silence, without any interaction, without any electronic devices, just without.....

Demo was a success and blog coverage is up. For a fairly detailed account of the event, you can start here, which is the first entry and scroll up from there for coverage of the entire conference.

I have also posted photos from this year's event - just go to photo albums on the left, click on Demo 2005, then scroll to the bottom and click Enter Gallery.

Demo@15 Celebration Dinner

Innovators were honored at last night's Demo 15th Anniversary Celebration Dinner in Scottsdale. I ran into a number of old industry friends I haven't seen in a few years.

There were the views from within the audience of the audience:

Steve Wildstrom, Ed and Janie Baig with their baby

introNetworks Founders Kymberlee Weil and Mark Sylvester.

Five Across' VP of Marketing David Aune.

Over from Germany, Kai Krause

Buzz Bruggeman

David Hornik with his wife

And then there were the views from the audience of the action on the stage:

Chris Shipley's introductions

Donna Dubinsky at the microphone

Jeff Hawkins, just like I remember him from five to ten years ago. He encourages everyone to follow their passion, work with people they truly trust, respect and can have fun with. "Follow your heart,"and the success will follow.

Donna and Jeff are now on the board of directors of the Redwood Neuroscience Institute.

Chris Shipley also honors the founder of Demo, Stewart Alsop, who was gracious enough at the end of his short speech to toast to Chris, who has been the producer now for eight out of the 15 years.

Demo God Awards

Chris Shipley called all Demo Gods to the stage to receive their kudos across various categories. Homestead won the overall Demo God award, which was a hands down win after the audience stood to clap and whistle after their guitar playing and singing performance.

Teleo's CEO Peter Sisson with his Demo God Award. BTW, did I mention that Robert Scoble blogged about this as a Skype killer? Gotta love it.

Five Across' VP of Marketing David Aune and CEO Glenn Reid for the shortest "fastest" demo to demonstrate their Bubbler blogging product, known for its speed and simplicity.

Good People, Great Moments

Patty Magid, Renee Blodgett, WSJ's Walt Mossberg and Larry Magid.

A Brief Break for the Camera

Robert Scoble, iUpload's Dave Carter , Renee Blodgett and iUpload CEO Robin Hopper, all of whom are great at nice short posts, unlike my lengthy meanderings.

More Social Moments at Demo

I'm still trying to figure out the 'real' differences between digital camera quality, particularly in situations like conferences and shows. I just purchased the Olympus C-7000, which has a great 7.2 megapixel, 5x zoom with a fairly short shutter lag. When you need a quick shot and the lighting is dubious, I get blurred results.

A few fabulous shots taken by Dan Bricklin -- no flash -- at a group dinner on Valentines Day Night in Scottsdale. Notice the difference in lighting and tone. There's also a softer effect and more clarity.

Barak's dessert. The food was fabulous.

Me with Newsweek's Steven Levy.

A fabulous shot of Mena and Ben Trott outside the restaurant.

With Mena Trott:

Group Shot: (Stowe treated us to champagne....and the waiters gave us white roses)

Fireside Chat with Dan Bricklin

Another fireside chat on stage with one of the honorary guests to celebrate Demo's 15 year anniversary. Chris Shipley interviews Dan Bricklin.

Chris asks, "What is inspiring you this Demo?" Dan has been spending a lot of time with video lately. He responds, "Video and new media, and the fact that RSS and blogs are being accepted as part of other things. More and more of what we do is about being connected. Mundane communications are no longer mundane."

A snapshot of Dan before he claims his kudos and applause.

Dan has not only been dabbling in video, but exploring intellectual property and the open source world. Dan says, "It occurred to me that some of the basic concepts of copyright law and of computer software licensing are things that most developers don’t understand. So, why not do a training video?" His working title is: Why a lawyer is a developer’s friend.

Chris laughs – you may want to come up with a different title….or does he?

Dan continues, "We had to get proficient at photos, then editing those photos, then we had to learn about audio with podcasting and now video. You have to learn about all these news things to communicate to the new world. There were no tools for creating highly linked web pages, but today with blogging, there are certain structures to information that work really well like permalinks. Podcasting is so 'right,' and we're trying to figure out where that will fit. You can take audio with you. Now we have this perfect match that we didn’t have two years ago.”

Dan shows a video, which is a short excerpt of what he wants to teach developers about copyright law.

"If you abide by certain conditions, then you’ll be allowed to do certain things," slide one of the video says. He shows end-user license agreements and how to decipher them. He explains how to decipher what the bargain is, i.e., you can only load software once on one computer versus something more complex, etc.

Chris finishes up her interview, “You are ten years ahead of the rest of us. What’s next on the horizon?”

Dan responds: “I like the idea that we’re finding ways to handle large amounts of data so you can save every record, photograph and video. I love mobility and the fact everything is integrated with other aspects of our lives. I love the fact that we’re leveraging the community to produce really great stuff.”

Here's Dan later on in the evening at the Awards Celebration Dinner reading a short speech to the Demo audience.

Dan with iUpload's VP of Strategy Dave Carter.......

And with Six Apart's Mena and Ben Trott after our blogger dinner last night.

Send 7 Megapixel Images in a Flash

The on-stage demos are winding down; another worth mentioning is Photoleap. Photoleap works precisely like email so easy to use. It allows consumers to share photographs – and lots of them -- whether they’re on Mac or Windows. He shows us how Photoleap will allow you to send 250 - 7 megapixel images to friends and family in an email-like window. Drag and drop it over and hit send. Sounds too easy to be true, but there’s no doubt, many of us have a need for this kind of solution.

Demo: From Where I Sit

This is a classic, wonderful and familiar view when you're hanging out in the Bloggers Corner.....Robert Scoble's hands typing away as a group of us busily blog the vendor demos on stage.

In front of me, Amy Wohl looks to the stage waiting for the next Demo presenter.

San Jose Mercury News' Mike Langberg and Associated Press' Frank Bajak.

BusinessWeek's Steve Wildstrom after the last session.

Even though its nearly over, Jason and team are still here finishing up their notes, posting photos, videos, and more.

The Bloggers Corner

Here's the Bloggers Corner at Demo. There always seems to be a bloggers corner at conferences these days and its usually in the front of the room.

In the back: G'Day World's Cameron Reilly, Microsoft's Robert Scoble, Buzz Bruggeman, Ed Bott, and in the front, Marc Orchant, Jason Calacanis,, me and Dan Bricklin.

The guys did a really great job covering the conference at www.bloggingdemo.com.

Ed Baig's Baby

At Demo in Scottsdale, with Janie Baig, USA Today's Ed Baig's wife and their adorable baby.

Bubbler: The Fast Blogging Tool

Five Across' Bubbler was on stage and the demo was fast.....really fast. Demo stage slots are typically six minutes and they managed to do it in roughly two minutes, which received audience applause. The concept: a quick and easy blogging tool known for its amazing speed.

The Demo blogging team got a great shot of them on stage.

Scoble and Bott

Microsoft's Robert Scoble and Freelance Writer Ed Bott.

Homestead: Demo God Award

Homestead won the Demo God Award......we (the Demo audience) was certain of this after their six minute segment. The Demo audience is a tough one, so its very difficult to pull off a guitar with "song" demo and command respect from a crowd who's there to see serious technology that's sustainable. They managed to communicate their message with wit, grace and music.....Oh yeah, humor too. Two thumbs up.

Homestead builds websites - from templates that can customized and automated quickly and affordably.

A Few Demo Moments

The iUpload Booth and Team.

Ben Trott and Peter Sisson.

Giving Photographers Widespread Distribution

Rick Smolan comes onto the Demo stage with a Digital Railroad, which gives photographers wide distribution and an ability to take the control back.

Digital Railroad gives photographers the ability to reach buyers on a global scale that wasn’t possible before. Digital Railroad is giving buyers and bloggers to ability to sign up for custom photofeeds via RSS from photographers from around the world.

Says Rick, “With Digital Railroad, I can be anywhere in the world – the system automatically decides what size of photo you need so you don’t need to figure it out. With four clicks, you can decide in advance what you’re interested in and you automatically get to see those photos.”

You can subscribe to a feed once and it can be delivered to your desktop from many different sources. You can do a search by keywords of what you’re interested in today and then whatever comes up a week from now will automatically be sent to you so you don’t need to keep going in and doing searches about things you’re interested in or monitor on a regular basis.

Booth Set Up

iUpload's Robin Hopper at the Demo booth setting up.

Reach Multiple Communities From One Blog

Client iUpload is on the Demo stage demonstrating their new Perspectives offerings.

iUpload Perspectives offers a unique business blogging application that allows users to create content in their blog and instantly reach multiple communities and sites. Perspectives takes managing content and blogging to a new level, extending the reach of information by making it available to a wider audience, cross posting to diverse communities, or, targeting information within your own community down to particular individuals.

The number of Perspectives that can be applied to content is growing weekly and ranges from: customer relationship and contact management applications like salesforce.com and Plaxo; search portals like Yahoo!; social networks applications like Tribe; classified and auction sites like eBay; product and service review sites; contests and promotions from large brands like Idol; and even user generated tags like Technorati and Flickr.

The coolest part was the traffic they got at their booth after their demonstration. Too public to post some of the major players here but easy to imagine - any company or entity attending Demo who wants to build communities and turn on hundreds, no....thousands of bloggers overnight. Beyond the power of empowering more authors to write, bloggers can now tap into multiple communities from the friendly confines of their own blog.

Portable Clickable VoIP

Client Teleo is getting some heat this week at Demo - good heat. Everyone in the industry "wants" VoIP to work, right? People want cheaper calling plans, people want to service anywhere, everywhere.....on their PC, their mobile phones, even on regular phones.

Teleo unveiled a VoIP solution that targets mobile professionals and those who rely on cell phones and email as primary communication vehicles. Priced at $4.95 per month, a free 30 day trial can be downloaded today at www.teleo.com.

Teleo is a personal, portable VoIP system that lets customers use their cell phone, regular phone or PC to receive VoIP calls. Unlike location- or device-centric telephony, Teleo is a free-floating service that can be used anywhere there’s an Internet connection. It features patent-pending technology that safely transverses firewalls without changing settings, so calls can be made over WiFi or inside corporate environments.

Teleo: Next Generation VoIP

Teleo's Peter Sisson on stage. This is next generation VoIP - the way you want it and where you want it, whether its on a PC or a regular phone. Isn't it interesting that the Internet connection went down at precisely one minute before Peter's demo and went back up two minutes after he went off stage. Hmmmmmm, what's the deal with that?

OutBoxer Curbs Email Risk

Former Dragon Systems' executives, Roger Matus and Sean True launch OutBoxer on the Demo stage.

The idea behind Audiotrieve’s OutBoxer is to help curb email risk by analyzing messages before they are sent and they demonstrate this by analyzing more than 500,000 emails written by senior executives and trades from Enron.

OutBoxer scans outgoing messages for key risk factors, such as inappropriate content and unauthorized disclosure of personal or secret information.

Chris Shipley Interviews Kai Krause

On the Demo 2005 stage, Chris Shipley interviews Kai Kraus on stage, who has been hiding in Europe for the past six years.

Chris starts by asking Kai, “Where have you been and what have you been doing?” Kai doesn’t spend much time talking about his new innovations – in fact, the tone of the entire discussion is about his desire to escape from it all for peace and solitude in rural Germany. He talks about buying his turn of the century castle, getting lost in his old German hometown, and working on his new project, which he is incredibly vague about. He adds, “I don’t need any money and don’t plan on doing a demo.”

We hear a lot about the castle and a lot about the past. People who have never seen Kai demo or know who is he is in the audience are confused.

His goal after MetaCreations and heading back to Europe was to start a future lab – but without the pressure. What does he mean by this? “In Europe, there’s not the same kind of infrastructure, such as the network of VCs that we here,” says Kai. “Sure, there are tons of great ideas over there and smart engineers but we don’t have the structure in place.”

Kai keeps echoing the words peace and solitude. He feels that the kind of pressure he left in Corporate America, forces companies to come out with things far too early. He syas that he didn’t want to live with the kind of pressure that it takes to meet $12 million a quarter.

As for his passion today, it seems to be more about his castle, his wife and creating innovation silently in the country. When Chris pushes Kai into sharing more about his new innovation, Kai continues to be vague. “It’s a window into a world, and where they really make or break it is at the final moment.” Hmm, I’m not sure what that really means. He says he wants to come to DemoEurope, so perhaps we’ll find out more in the next year.

Joe Kraus' JotSpot

Joe Kraus is showing his latest venture called JotSpot, which is a hosted wiki. Their value proposition: people want to be alerted automatically every time something changes, from data on the web to data in business applications to data in email to data on your hard drive.

Says Joe, "What you want is a situated application, so you don’t have to look for changes – they find you. JotSpot allows you to integrate with email, salesforce.com, web-based data, etc. Situation applications will change the way business is done.”

Social Networking with a Visual Twist

introNetworks founders Kymberlee Weil and Mark Sylvester jump up on the Demo stage for the liveliest explanation of what their technology does, one which involved active audience participation.

They ask everyone to quickly stand up and then ask that anyone who is not a member of the press or a demonstrator to sit down. They then ask anyone who is a Demo virgin to sit down. Who's left standing is a small group which Mark and Kymberlee say to the crowd - "these are the money guys and who you want to talk to." Everyone laughs.

It was a quick and excellent way to highlight the power of their social networking software, which is used in gated communities to visually sort a large group of people into individualized subgroups according to a wide variety of search criteria.

Whether you’re looking for a potential new business partner, customer, a job, or others with similar interests, introNetworks software allows you to identify those individuals who match targeted profiles, to best help you achieve your business goals at the event.

Fireside Chat with Stewart Alsop

The first fireside chat is with Demo founder Stewart Alsop. Chris Shipley opens the session up with a question about the staying power of Demo and why has it lasted as long as it has, even through the technology bubble collapse.

Stewart says, “Having innovators come up with really cool products, then having people evaluate them and decide on them is the core of the technology business, whatever it happens to be. This is why we have reached 250 million people and why Demo survives.”

Chris asks, “How has the process evolved over 15 years?” Stewart’s response: “In the beginning, we didn’t need a network for Demo’s demos to succeed. Internet applications are much harder to demonstrate since you have to count on reliable connectivity.

The business models and how products get introduced have changed dramatically but the fundamentals of getting a new innovations started in a garage before funding is still the same.”

Chris’ next question: “What role has Demo played for your portfolio clients?”

Stewart: “It’s important that your product demonstrates well. When I make an investment in a company, I’m looking for the impact of the product on the masses. Customers matter. They’re the ones who have to support your product and understand what that impact is.”

On the topic of Stewart’s investments being primarily consumer technology driven, Stewart responds, “I don’t know what a consumer technology market really is. TiVo is an interesting company because its one that everyone predicts will fail, yet has changed the way everyone thinks about television.

Consumer technology is a really difficult area to invest in, since the fundamental validation point is that you need masses to invest and support your technology. It’s a high hurdle but if you can get there, it’s really great.”

Jason Calanis from Weblogs, Inc. throws out this comment to the audience and to Stewart - “It seems like the promise of technology and what it can do has been sold out by a lot of the technology companies and now its up to the open source community to show what it can do.”

Chris: “What are the lessons we should learn from TiVo?” Stewart says, “I still believe in TiVo and still have every share. I’m a big believer in the long term success of TiVo. TiVo does need to have an economic proposition to move forward as a viable enterprise, but one of the innovations is sustainability and being persistent.”

Stewart finishes up with a response to Chris’ final question – “so, are you having fun?”

“I like the idea of being an investor. I love the process of starting a little company and toppling structures. I’m in the process of creating something that will allow me to invest in companies and take advantage of my meeting and writing skills – to blend the first part of my career and the second part of my career together.”

Wildstrom Typing Away

BusinessWeek's Steve Wildstrom in that Demo seat he always manages to get.

TiVo For Gamers

One of Stewart Alsop’s investments is now on stage introducing XFire, a platform designed to simplify online gaming, an audience of over 50 million in the U.S. alone. A year ago when they launched, they had 100 users and today, they’re apparently up to a million.

XFire is a bit like an instant messenger for gamers, where you can communicate back and forth with other gamers. With one click, you can be connected to other gamers. He defines the problem: it’s hard to reach gamers through traditional media since they’re glued to games more than any other medium.

With XFire, you can get instant messages inside your game. You have the ability to control the appearance of the message on the screen and how transparent you want it to be. It’s a great way for marketers to get into any gamer’s “view.” He says, “We have revolutionized messaging for gamers.” There’s that word again.

Today, they are also introducing a legal peer-to-peer download file system, which you can think of as TiVo for gamers. It’s a way for users to share files (uploaded and downloaded) in a trusted environment. XFire knows what games people play and lets gamers know what patches are available more readily. Cool technology but clearly a very niche market.

White & Bright LCD

Ntera’s executive is now on the Demo stage and starts to use all of the overly dramatic words and phrases that us marketing types try to steer CEOs away from – like revolutionary. The drama is so overdone that it adds a bit of humor to his presentation however. Ah yes, more drama – “this will transform the industry.”

“The time for old LCD and its cousin is over,” he says as he introduces a nano-based particle that gives a white, bright-like ink screen effect when compared to a darker dimmer screens on our current cell phones. The Elmo compares the current iPod screen to one using their nano-based particle technology and it gleams, apparently without the drain on battery life. It’s worth watching the space and how much it will cost for us to get the added benefit of “gleam, white and bright.”

Serious Magic Gives Facelift to Video & PowerPoint

Serious Magic announces two new products I personally would buy as soon as they’re available: basically a skin for video and a skin for PowerPoint.

Vlogging, a new and growing approach to video, gets rid of editing and gives the power to the user. You can mix a different medium, by dragging pictures or video clips and dropping them next to words that accompany them. VlogIt, which is being announced today, includes a ‘green screen’ function that creates a skin of your choice, such as a fabricated news room or a beach in Hawaii. VlogIt will be available this spring for $99.

He then shows us why PowerPoint is so boring and reminds us that there hasn’t been an face lift to presentation software in years. Enter Ovation, which is a an add-on to PowerPoint to help you become a better presenter. You can drop an existing PowerPoint into Ovation and it dramatically changes the “look and feel.”

From what I could see in a brief presentation, Ovation gives presentations more depth, motion and even includes drop shadows and soft edges to give it more drama. It includes a nifty notecard feature, which can be a scrolling teleprompter that learns the pace of your presentation, so it can inform you if you’re behind or ahead. Ovation will also be priced at $99. I want both of them.

New Innovative Stuff: Part I

Demo First Session

Here's the first entry of many to come in the next two days of new product announcements, gossip and social activities live from the Demo floor.

VKB shows a virtual keyboard that consists of a projection system and a detection system. Hmmmm, the main thing I remember about their presentation is the stat that it is actually cleaner to eat from your toilet bowl than from your keyboard. Who says that humor doesn’t work in Demo presentations?

MDA is on stage showing us how easily they can create 3D models easily and quickly....one use is underground mining, which is apparently a $70 million opportunity alone. Geologists can use these 3D models without ever having to go underground.

Motorola, who has been working in stealth mode on their new product iRadio for awhile, does their first demo on a miniature truck with a Pioneer car radio facing the audience. The claim is that iRadio will change how music fans acquire and discover music. iRadio isn’t really a radio, its your choice of hundreds of channels, including access to talk radio and your own MP3 files wherever you happen to be.

If you hear a song you like, you can hold down a button and it will memorize it so you can pull it up or buy it later. You can do everything you can do on an iPod on your car stereo. Then he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and says “Everything you are hearing is streaming through my cell phone, so I can control my music through my cell phone or through my radio.” It gets a wow from the audience. If I can find a “geek friend” to set this up for me so I don’t even have to think about it except for having to push one button or the another, sign me up.

Demo Introduction.......

Demo@15 officially starts this morning with Chris Shipley on stage highlighting the thousands of products that have been unveiled over the past decade and a half.

A host of old time regulars are here as well as some new faces, including more Brits, Australians, Israelis and Europeans. And of course there's my Canadian guys, who are on stage tomorrow morning.

Patrick McGovern sits in the middle of the front row, Robert Scoble, Amy Wohl and Shel Israel are packed in behind him.

There are more press than previous years. I'm always amazed that Steve Wildstrom seems to find the same seat every year. Then again, we're all creatures of habit as I sit here in the front row two seats in so I can make an easy phone exit or dash off to the green room, which I plan to do four times this year.

Peter Lewis, Ed Baig, Michael Miller and Ben Gottesman sit behind me, journalists I have worked with in some capacity for well over a decade. More so than the demonstrations that are starting to unveil before me is the reminder of how many times I've been to a Demo or a technology conference like it. And the reminder that I can no longer schmooze till 4 in the morning and be sharp three hours later.

Perspectives in Print (already)

Richard Koman interviews client iUpload's CEO Robin Hopper today on the phone during the middle of the Demo cocktail soiree. Makes me think of the golden early nineties.

The focus of the piece is on iUpload's new Perspectives, which is being launched on stage here this week. Perspectives allows bloggers to "live in your blog and let the content show up in other communities." When a company signs up a Perspectives sponsor, iUpload provides them with a range of back-end tools to specify what information should be included for their site. Users can choose which Perspectives they want to post to and customize the voice of their posts accordingly.

Included initially are Perspectives such as Tribe, Yahoo, Ebay, Salesforce.com, Plaxo, Technorati and others. The service includes Technorati user-generated tags, as well.

The business model includes charging both sponsors and corporations for the hosted service. Individuals can use the blogging tools for free.

On Demo Rehearsals

I'm a mad woman at Demo this year. Too much to do, not enough time and like most Demos, not enough sleep and the conference hasn't officially even started. We're back to elevator pitches 101.

Teleo's CEO Peter Sisson on stage during a technical rehearsal. Wonderful stage props this year. Stay tuned for a fabulous line up of demonstrators.

BTW, about hanging out with my Canadian clients iUpload, not only did I have to take a photo of an orange tree, but when we went through script rehearsal in their room this afternoon, I wished I had brought a winter coat :-)

iUpload's Perspectives: Reach Multiple Communities Instantly

Client iUpload launched iUpload Perspectives, which is a unique business blogging application that allows users to create content in their blog and instantly reach multiple communities and sites.

iUpload Perspectives takes managing content and blogging to a new level, extending the reach of information by making it available to a wider audience, cross posting to diverse communities, or, targeting information within your own community down to particular individuals.

The number of Perspectives that can be applied to content is growing weekly and ranges from: customer relationship and contact management applications like salesforce.com and Plaxo; search portals like Yahoo!; social networks applications like Tribe; classified and auction sites like eBay; product and service review sites; contests and promotions from large brands like Idol; and even user generated tags like Technorati and Flickr.

Says Gartner's Allen Weiner: “By empowering more authors, organizations can have an integrated and powerful way to implement new consumer generated marketing and branding platforms.”

Key Benefits For Individuals
iUpload Perspectives allows you to live in and communicate from your blog rather than taking the time to go to numerous websites and applications while retaining control over where your information might appear.

Key Benefits For Organizations
iUpload Perspectives offers an effective way to tap into the blogosphere, launch consumer generated marketing programs, conduct promotions and contest, and create, expand and promote participation in their community. A host of administrative tools allow organizations to manage and distribute content coming from individuals as appropriate, turning bloggers into potential authors and allowing them to leverage the very best content into any of their web properties.

Those interested in trying out their free blogging software can sign up directly here.

Bubbler's Blog Tool: Lightning Speed

Five Across, the Silicon Valley start-up that fused instant messaging with file sharing in 2004, redefined the landscape of web publishing today with the announcement of Bubbler at DEMO, a blogging platform mainly aimed at the consumer market.

Bubbler's blogging tools are known for their lightning speed. The Bubbler client updates text and pages in real time, allows drag-and-drop photo, audio, and video sharing, and has a group model that provides wiki-like collaboration for authorized users. The Bubbler hosted service is launching as a free public beta and the Bubbler client is available for download here.

Blogging Before Bubbler
Blogging software delivers the ability to author pages in a pre-formatted style combined with built-in web hosting, so users don’t need to arrange for web hosting contracts, understand FTP, and become DNS experts. As a result, blogging software has delivered a faster, easier way for consumers and business users alike to publish online.

Bubbler's Advantage
Bubbler users create web pages by dragging and dropping their content – blog entries, photographs, and links. Five Across’ Bubbler Server technology combines the content into compelling web pages in real time. While most blog software is limited to text entries, Bubbler excels at photo, audio, and video file handling. Blog authors can now post files of any type, including digital photographs, movies, audio, and other multimedia assets as well as business documents like spreadsheets, documents, and presentations. Content assembled with Bubbler can be presented in dramatically different styles through a rich set of high-quality designer templates.

30-day trials will be available after which several hosting options will start at $4.99 per month, depending on storage and bandwidth usage.

Full Disclosure: I have been providing consulting services to Five Across.

Teleo: Next Generation VoIP

Client Teleo, a San Francisco-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service provider, unveiled the Company and the product Teleo at DEMO.

Think next generation VoIP baby - its here, its hot and solves so many of the problems that existing VoIP soutions fail to do. The new service targets mobile professionals and those who rely on cell phones and email as primary communication vehicles. Priced at $4.95 per month, a free 30 day trial can be downloaded today .

Teleo was extremely well received by potential partners, customers and industry analysts during NDA briefings prior to the launch.

More on what it is and how it works:
Teleo is a personal, portable VoIP system that lets customers use their cell phone, regular phone or PC to receive VoIP calls. Unlike location- or device-centric telephony, Teleo is a free-floating service that can be used anywhere there’s an Internet connection. It features patent-pending technology that safely transverses firewalls without changing settings, so calls can be made over WiFi or inside corporate environments. When Internet access is inconvenient, Teleo calls can be made or received on a cellular or regular phone.

Because Teleo is SIP-compliant, it works with enterprise VoIP systems and other VoIP networks. Teleo can receive calls from other PCs and regular phones, and place calls to anyone, anywhere – on a cell phone or PC – with the cost savings of VoIP. All Teleo-to-Teleo calls are free worldwide, as are inbound phone calls from any phone or PC.

Teleo offers Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer integration, facilitating “click to call” for any telephone number on the screen; it includes call forwarding and will soon offer voicemail.

Account management is facilitated through Teleo’s website. Users can set an inbound calling number, change voicemail and call forwarding settings, and view call detail records for PC-to-PC calls and calls to regular telephones. Prepaid minutes for outbound calls to regular phones can be purchased here for 2 cents/minute, as can accessories.

introNetworks & Networking

DEMO activity is heating up and the launches are coming. introNetworks, Inc.’s powerful visual networking software solution was introduced, which unites people, pinpoints valuable connections and builds communities.

Their technology is extremely valuable for the meeting, convention, trade show, association and publishing markets, as well as any large community. Whether you’re looking for a potential new business partner, customer, a job, or others with similar interests, introNetworks software allows you to identify those individuals who match targeted profiles, to best help you achieve your business goals at the event.

The introNetworks technology provides users with an engaging interactive experience and works well in any large-group format. The software program recognizes the identity, interests and experience of every person involved and then recommends which group of people each individual should meet.

It allows you to interactively and visually sort a large group of people into individualized subgroups according to a wide variety of search criteria. The person conducting the introNetworks search can enter a wide variety of search criteria into the introNetworks system. The large group of conference attendees is then instantly sorted and the most relevant attendees are displayed in a visual format that uses a “bull’s eye” graphic to show the most relevant results in the center and the least relevant on the outer edges.

What's also cool and most people don't see from using the product at shows are the incredible marketing & branding opportunities. Each introNetwork system is a private label branded application, which provides a number of marketing opportunities for any group deploying an introNetwork system. For example, this can be a paid sponsorship opportunity for a tradeshow, or a corporate branded application with an industry association.

Apple could sponsor it for a graphic designers tradeshow or MetLife could sponsor it at an insurance conference. Because the system is online for a year and is accessed frequently throughout the year, it becomes a premium Branding and Advertising vehicle, as well as a way to tap into preferences of the users.

Full Disclosure: I have been providing consulting services to introNetworks.

Media Trends or Dennis Quaid? Hmmmm.

Gartner's Allen Weiner suggested a fabulous place for us (Client iUpload's CEO Robin Hopper, VP of Strategy Dave Carter and myself) to have lunch in Scottsdale's trendy shopping row.

North, is a "love to be seen kind of bistro," but with all the right elements - exposed brick walls, wood floors, open stove and prep area, not to mention that funky cosmopolitan loft flavor with raw steel accents.

Of course we talked about media content trends, where its going, podcasting, "new journalism," issues facing traditional newspapers today, corporate blogging and all the fabulous tools that are changing the meaning of and value proposition of content management. Great conversation.

Three great highlight to my morning - meeting Allen in person, seeing the brand spanking new iUpload website at 3 am this morning (managing content meets corporate blogging), and seeing Dennis Quaid stroll past us in the restaurant. How's this face for an enticing distraction?

Kierland Tradition

Have arrived in a very rainy Phoenix three hours late - something to do with chaotic weather in Vegas again. What's with the weather in Vegas lately? It snowed when I was there in January and I froze my xi& off.

I think its the third year Demo has held their event at the Scottsdale Kierland Resort. Odd, its such a swank property and yet I always seem to have Internet problems in the rooms every year.

It took a good half an hour to get up and running tonight. Or perhaps as the former Dragon Systems' IT guy Saul used to say - my creative karma is at odds with all things technical, all things digital, all things that have a plug or connection.

I asked my cabbie driver if he knew what blogging was? "Blaaaaahgggng?," he replied. "Sounds like something illegal."

Off to Demo

I'm off to Phoenix for this year's Demo, the home of innovative high technology launches. 74 companies plan to introduce new products next week.

Now in its 15th year, they plan to honor world class visionaries and innovators from previous years, such as Benioff, Bricklin, the Google guys, Jeff Hawkins and Stewart Alsop. It should be a good one. More news from the floor when I arrive.

Networking at Yahoo

Fabulous networking shindig at Yahoo Wednesday night, with dinner and a panel "pitch" on Yahoo's vision that Red Herrings' Joel Dreyfuss moderated. It took awhile for them to get to the topic of blogging....

Susan Mernit asked the panel that included Craig Forman, Scott Gatz (Yahoo's personalization guy), and Don Loeb (Biz Dev), what they planned to do to help bloggers monetize feeds......and Mr. Wiki Man himself Ross Mayfield asked them to address the personalization meets socialization issue, i.e., what they were planning to do to bring the two together.

Gray and unclear answers to both. A couple of RSS stats they threw out there....

--January 2004: The % of page views read via RSS was at zero.
--December 2004: In less than a year, the % was approaching 1%

1% may be appear like a small number, but if you do the calculations against the number of Yahoo users, it adds up and is clearly growing daily.

Among the faces and personalities in the room for this discussion were Knight Ridder's Bruce Koon, Pheedo's Bill Flitter, David Hornik, Dave Sifry, Seth Goldstein, the PubSub guys, Yahoo's Bill Gannon, iVillage's Mark Graham, JD Lasica, Steve Gillmor, Associated Press' James Kennedy, Five Across' Glenn Reid, NewsGator's Sandy Hamilton, and Dan Gillmor.

My Favorite People on Emerging "Stuff"

The Media Center (at the American Press Institute) is hosting an emerging technology, business and policy conference in Palo Alto next week.

I'm so snowed under that its unlikely I'll have time to break free to see all or part of it, even with the fabulous line up. So many of my favorite people and industry hot shots are speaking, including: Chris Anderson of Wired, Intelliseek's Pete Blackshaw, who I just hung out with at BlogBusinessSummit, Red Herring's Joel Dreyfuss, Caterina at Flickr (I think she's great), Pheedo's Bill Flitter, Dan Gillmor, Business 2.0's Om Malik, Ross Mayfield of Socialtext, and August Capital's David Hornik, who could easily make a living doing stand-up comedy if he gets bored with VC life.

For those of us in the industry who do the circuit, and do it often, do you ever feel like you're actually living at a technology conference?

The line up is good though......Mobile and VoIP, digital downloads (as if I need more of these), social ventures in digital media, advertising: new technologies and tools (RSS, RSS, RSS, RSS - must be where they're putting Pheedo), VC View (why do they always have to include that one :-), censorship (they allow an open forum on this under the current administration??), premium services versus free content (I'd love to see this one), privacy and identity (love to be at that one too), and open media: what is the new transparency and how does it affect you? Gotta love that one.

Hell, in one day and on one page, I posted a photograph of a teddy bear, client media kudos and a political link. That's transparency. Just "do it," and you'll discover how it affects you. We're all learning in real time.

Blog University Marketing Gems

Elisa Comahort, Andy Lark (Alias RA) and Renee Blodgett at New Communications Forum's Blog University last week.

Andy Lark Alias RA & Italian

Sun Microsystem's Global VP of Communications Andy Lark suggested we go for dinner at Bistro Don Giovanni last night, a fabulous Italian eatery in the center of Napa along Route 29.

Andy did this morning's Blog University keynote....Forbes.com already picked it up. He recently posted an interesting write-up on the Gartner Meta acquisition - check it out.

What a great occasion to meet and hang out with Andy for the first time - over wine and great food in Napa Valley. He's fascinating to listen to and one would think he had twenty ventures going simultaneously after hearing about his numerous passions.

Here's a wonderful post dinner shot of Andy, me, Elisa Camahort, and Six Apart's Director of Marketing Deborah Shultz.

Poor Andy - I kept referring to him as the Sun Guy all night until Deb suggested I might want to start calling him Andy. Frankly, I think telling the hostess that our reservation was for the Sun God himself helped us get a table. I have a new nickname for Andy - RA, which is short for Sun Ra (the Sun God).....you know - Saturn, the web home of Sun Ra and his protean Arkestra.

Power Laws and You

Stowe Boyd led the Power Laws and You session at Blog University today.

On the panel included: Nooked's Fergus Burns, Six Apart's Michael Sippey, Creative Blogging's Jacobi Torsten and client NewsGator's Mike Lombardo.

Reed's Law states that the value of an online network is based on the number of groups that people form, not just the number of people. As networks become very large, this grouping phenomenon leads to interesting dynamics, since popular search engines rank order websites and blogs based on the number of incoming links.

Being more connected -- more referenced -- increases the likelihood of being discovered today, and the probability of gaining more links in the future: the so-called Networking Power Laws. Translated into public relations, these facts mean that the more connections to your website, or the more mentions about your product and services, the better.

Enhancing Internal Communications with Blogs

I didn't see the entire session with Nick Finck, Mary Hodder and Biz Stone at the BlogBusinessSummit, but you can view their presentation and notes here on enhancing internal communications with blogs and wikis.

Tilted Head.....

Bloggers at both blogging conferences (those who new me and those who met me for the first time) thought my tilted head photograph on my blog didn't flatter me and also suggested that it didn't look anything like me. Interesting. Time to take a new shot.......I get the message.

Gene Driskell took this photo at DigiFoo in the Fall. Gene, want to fly to San Francisco to take another one?

Integrating Blogs in Business

HA. I always laugh when I hear this. 2005 is going to be the 'year of the blog.' I wonder what I'll be doing in 2006. A few things from the conference discussions and sessions to get involved and guide your CEOs and other executives.

Get up to speed on blogs. Start your own blog. Visit blogs and join conversations. Reach out and build a network. Research your own IT infrastructure. Connect with like-minded colleagues, whatever their discipline. Talk to your senior management colleagues. Create a group blog for your function (or with your clients if you're a consultancy). Find an influential champion. Reach out and build a network. Research your own IT infrastructure to find out what tools make sense to implement. Connect with like-minded colleagues, whatever their discipline. Get a news aggregator and start monitoring blogs. (hey, try out NewsGator....they're a client, so yup, I'm a little bias) Talk to your senior management colleagues and find out what their goals are. Create a group blog for your function (or with your clients if you're a consultancy). Find an influential champion and engage them.

Corporate Blogging Guidelines

I completely agree with the fact that there should be no policies dictating what employees can and cannot say on their personal blogs. Guidelines are in order however. Clearly this is important from a legal perspective, a way to clarify what could be harmful to the company and a useful tactic to show that there's trust.

Neville Hobson talked about a few pointers that make a good conversation for those wishing to blog inside and outside of organizations and and for PR professionals who are involved in establishing these guidelines.

Make it clear that the views expressed in the blog are yours alone and do not necessarily represent the views of your employer. Respect the company's confidentiality and proprietary information. Ask your manager if you have any questions about what is appropriate to include in your blog. Be respectful about the company, other employees, customers, partners, and competitors. Understand when the company asks that topics not be discussed for confidentiality or legal compliance reasons. Ensure that your blogging activity does not interfere with your work commitments.

Objectivity vs Authenticity

In the ethics discussion at Blog University's last session, Jeremy says, "Journalists strive for objectivity and bloggers strive for authenticity." Simple, but true. I like it.

Says Stowe Boyd, "Blog is a social media. It’s not going to be a code of ethics like journalism has today, or will there be…? Perhaps a BS in blogging.." Everyone laughs.

I think its true that it’s going to be the social context that will help you determine what you read and respect. There’s a responsibility on the side of bloggers and journalists but there’s also the reader's responsibility to filter through and comment on what is real and honest.

If this is really all about conversations, then it needs to be two ways and it needs to be interactive. We have already started this process but it will clearly evolve. More authors, more voices, more perspectives....all good. More to read. ARRRRGH. This part is getting out of control.

Howard Stern Like a Blogger

A great line from Richard Koman over coffee today. Howard Stern is a like a blogger – complete transparency unveiled for everyone to see and hear. He wears it on his sleeve (in his case nationally on the air) in the same way that many bloggers throw it out there. It's naked.

New Media: Blog or Print?

While yesterday's Blog University event was more of a workshop 'learning' format, today's sessions were in one room and packed with panels and interactive discussions that revolved around ethics and communications strategies.

The first panel on Blogging and Journalism included Jeremy Wright, Fast Company's Heath Row and former Financial Times columnist Tom Foremski and was moderated by ProfNet's Dan Forbush.

Neville Hobson also blogged about the session and has a great shot of the group. It's amazing how fast he gets his posts up - he may be up there with David Weinberger. A blog animal.

The first question was about whether the dynamics of blogging have changed the way they deal with PR executives. Tom doesn't think it changes the communication process at all, Jeremy feels that it is dramatically different and Heath is mixed.

On the topic of online versus print. It's always a win if something on the web or a blog makes it into print, says Heath Row. Tom says that journalists steal from other journalists all the time. It's clear that switching from a world of traditional print journalism to blogging has made a significant impact on his life.

Someone from the audience asks: what makes a blog entry journalism opposed to just rambling? Tom says, "I ask myself this question. Is blogging just another form of journalism? It's really more of a super-set of journalism. Blogging allows for free-form thinking and creation. You don't have to edit for style like you do when you write for a column in print. It's cutting away from that old form of print journalism, experimenting and being innovative in different ways. This is what excites me."

Others agree. Blogs today are what journalism used to be in the early days. Today, we're starting to see 'real facts and honest truth,' - transparency at its best. "There's no reason why my brain dumps should be getting 100,000 readers," says Jeremy. It's because its raw, transparent and honest.

Heath jumps in, "Blogging encompasses all forms of writing. That being said, I consider the blogging I do for Fast Company a form of immediate journalism. As soon as something happens, everyone can know about it within moments."

He refers to the objective true voice in journalism. We can try to be as objective as we want, but its still subjective. We're just not honest about it. Blogging really brings out the personality of the writer. If they disagree with an opinion, you can see why and its immediate - it comes across in a very human way. Blogs are subjective and there's also the intersubjectivity that David Weinberger refers to."

So what's next? Will everyone on this panel become talk show hosts as time marches on?

Another thought on models that will evolve. One is the epic model, where the source doesn't matter but how people view it will. The second model is where blogs become nothing, its the foundation, part of the web, part of the fabric. The third model that will evolve is that blogs could be entirely changed, whether its audio, video or someone's pure thoughts. Blogs evolve on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. To believe that they're going to stay the same is very naive.

Tom has such a strong British accent and style; every time he responds or makes a comment, I find myself smiling. It makes me miss my life in London that now feels like it never happened it was so long ago.

On models and how it will play out, "that's proprietary information" says Tom and the audience laughs.
"The technology that enables blogging is the fascinating thing. The technology behind it will change the media completely. It doesn't cost me anything to blog except for the cost of hosting it Everything is built on an open source platform. At the Financial Times, the costs to produce my story were significant. How will the small community papers compete with the growing number of news sources. Even News.com has publishing systems they have to support and data centers. It's expenisve."

Heath responds, "I don't think blogs are going to kill traditional media empires. Blogging is just another way to communicate. The barriers to entry have certainly increased. More people can read more people's opinions and more often. Having said that, the trusted and respected voices will still be there, on the web, or in the traditional media. There will be more trusted tribal voices that will arise."

He continues, "If you look at the Economist, there are no bylines. You don't know who the writers are. You read the Economist because the writing is so good. It also has a brand that you trust and that's part of the reason you go back for more. You will read other people based on the fact that someone you trust reads their blog or their media source. Worthwhile is a good example. Do you read it because that Halley and David's voices are represented there?"

This was really one of the better sessions, not just because of the panelists' viewpoints but because of the interactive discussion that followed the panel - live through questions and in the hallways over coffee.

Marqui'ism Debate

Corante’s Stowe Boyd just announced that he’s going to do a public debate with Marc Canter on the merits and issues around Marqui and what Stowe refers to as Marqui’ism, which Marqui is sponsoring I might add. It came up during the ethics interactive discussion at the Blog University event. Not surprising that it was raised here.

This is killing me. Anyone else? I have a lot of respect for Stowe however, and everything is being fully disclosed. It will be interesting to watch how the industry responds. Jeremy Wright, who's sitting right next to me, just posted his thoughts.

Three Personal Web Predictions

In today's wiki session, Dan Forbush throws out three personal web predictions:

1. The Personal Web will turn everyone into authors, playwrights, screenwriters and ad copywriters.

2. Wikis will be out primary collaboration medium.

3. New organizational models will emerge to resolve issues pertaining to copyright and compensation.

On the Value of Wikis

Constantin Basturea covers the value of wikis for PR and marketing teams as well as how to implement them for clients (both small and large companies).

He starts by referencing another a variation of "email is dead." Email is the place where knowledge goes to die.

My other world (early adopter bloggers and technologists) have been using wikis within companies and at conferences for a couple of years now, but this is clearly a new tool for PR agencies and some of the clients they represent; many of these among this audience include Fortune 500 companies. (Ketchum and Edelman reps are in the room for example).

A few things that wikis can bring: (old world versus new world)

1. Passive reader vs active reader.
2. Dependence on webmaster's updates vs update pages on the fly.
3. Information consumption vs information creation and sharing.
4. No ownership verus stakeholders.
5. Formal versus informal, human voice.

On how to implement a wiki:
According to Constantin, you need to first decide whether its a good fit for the organizational culture. It's obviously best when a wiki is used by a team since its collaborative in nature and doesn't set social rules. Think about wikis as a room where people come to collaborate and share information in real time.

There are various wiki engines out there so its important to evaluate which engine works for your particular corporate culture and decide which one will best meet your needs.

Once you decide on a wiki, next steps involve customizing and preparing your wiki, which includes design, features, and personal pages. Then, you prepare documentation (help, how it works), discover, encourage and support wiki gardeners, highlight functionality and then encourage participation and show management support.

ProfNet's President Dan Forbush talks about a relationship they have with Ross Mayfield's SocialText.

Dan runs through a demo of EditMe, which he suggests wiki beginners try out for $5 a month. He refers to EditMe as wikis on training wheels.

Blog Benefits for Employers & Employees

When it comes to value-adds for employers and employees, there's some overlap. I just met Neville Hobson for the first time today........amazing how many micro-networks there are within our macro-networks.

Its important to remember that just when you think you've tapped into and know every key influencer in the industry, there will always be one more and you'll never meet them all.

He covered the "Why do it and why care Mr. Employer...." There's still a lot of fear among employers, but frankly unless its an ugly snowball effect around something that isn't working internally or an employee blog post that throws you into a legal battle, there should be little fear about its potential negative impact.

As long as there are guidelines (more on that in a post soon), embracing new communication rather than trying to control it can only serve you.

A few thumbs up supporting the "why do it" from Neville's session include:

Employer Benefits:

1. It stimulates collaboration and communication.

2. It's inexpensive to implement and maintain.

3. Blogs are social networks that will change relationship barriers across cultures. (the Iraq blog I wrote about a few times is a good example)

4. It's an effective knowledge sharing and management tool.

5. It shows willingness to learn and foster individual thought and ownership.

Employee Benefits:

1. Collaboration and information sharing is made easy.

2. Blogs provide bottom-up self motivation not top down formal instruction command-and-control.

3. It's individual and spontaneous.

4. It gives employees a sense of ownership of ideas and I'd add, a sense of pride in something they create.

5. It's increasingly becoming easy to do.

6. Informal compared to more official channels.

Blogs for Corporate Crisis

Shel Holtz is moderating the discussion on the use of blogs (corporate and PR-driven blogs) for crisis communications within organizations.

A few pointers, which are fairly standard crisis communications guidelines:

1. Respond quickly, accurately, professionally and with care. 2. Treat perceptions as fact because in the eyes of the public, they are. 3. Acknowledge mistakes up front. I'd add: be human and professional when you do. 4. Take advantage of existing relationships.

Why blog in a crisis? There are many excellent reasons why a blog is useful when your company or client is facing a crisis situation:

1. You can provide a response instantly. 2. You can provide updates instantly. 3. A blog is a way to provide a human voice to the outside world. You can accommodate the publics' emotional response. 4. You can produce a record. 5. You can allocate a space on your blog that is ready to put an icon up with a statement, i.e., a place where people know where to go for a response or important instructions in time of a crisis. 6. If you communicate well and involve your audience, you can turn a crisis into a reputation opportunity. 7. Not every crisis affects the company directly. In the case of the wild fire in Carsen City, Nevada, companies were able to offer help or donate products on their blog.

PR Machine & The Blog Pitch

I'm having an odd moment in the first session of New Communications Form's Blog University. Here, I'm surrounded by a large group of PR professionals - supposedly my colleagues. Somewhere, somehow along the way, the blogger geeks and technologists have become my professional and social network, which means that I feel like I'm on foreign soil.

It's been awhile since I've managed accounts at an agency, attended a PRSA event or served on a PR committee. Being among so many people who are involved in my daily grind is bringing me back to the early nineties, so my odd moment might best be described as surreal. Forward wind, backward wind, forward wind again. Surreal.

Since running my own gig, my thread with other PR pros is more on a social level, i.e., organizing an event or party, lunch (and then we tend to talk about everything except for our industry), or logistics, i.e., should I work with this vendor or not?

The first breakout session is called "How to pitch bloggers." Bloggers are probably flinching. I had to walk out of the room. I have a major issue with the word "pitch." More on that later.

More Blogger Personalities

Another great photo worth posting from last night's Blog Business Summit reception in Seattle.

I love this city, but I must admit, I'm hoping that next year's 'winter blogging events' are in a warmer locations like Austin or Miami. Someone mentioned Boston and I thought: Boston in January -- are they kidding? In addition, we need music, energy, color and sauce. I think I should be on all conference committees.

Evelyn Rodriguez, Renee Blodgett, Google's Biz Stone, Corante's Stowe Boyd and Halley Suitt.

Girls, Todd English & Coffee

Halley and I at Todd English' fish restaurant in Seattle.

Proof that blondes and brunettes can both have fun.

In Napa for more Blog 'Stuff'

I can't believe I'm committed to two blogging conferences in two different states in one week. Had I flown to NY for VloggerCon last weekend, it would have been three.

I arrived in a very wet Napa tonight for Blog University, also known as New Communications Forum. They're holding it at the Silverado Resort, which is one of the older properties in the area.

It's an odd place really. My experience in Napa has always either revolved around drinking wine or buying it. The Silverado is fairly spread out and the rooms are really mini-condos rather than rooms, which are difficult to find on your own. Frankly its better to call the guy who's running around in a golf cart to reduce the risk of walking around in the dark and cold rain. Can you tell how I spend a half an hour of my time tonight?

The other thing to note is that the rooms are not heated until you arrive and turn it on. It takes awhile to heat the room up and the bathroom never does since its without a vent......Because of the rain, there is no wireless access. Because of the rain? Can someone explain that one to me?

On Fire Personalities

I leave Seattle's gray skies and arrive in San Francisco's drizzle, after an overcrowded United flight full of too many people with the flu. I didn't have time to explore Seattle, by day or night, but did learn a lot about web design and web content and more importantly met some fabulous people, including Erik Hansen who works with and writes for Tom Peters' blog, which has become their main corporate site.

Chris Pirillo on fire about Chris Pirillo's growing empire:

Molly Holzschlag was also on fire. She's fabulous and btw, she turned 42 today. She's celebrating in Seattle tonight........with chocolate and wine.

Jeff Angus with Stowe Boyd. I have known Jeff for years and had no idea he knew how to ballroom dance....we had a brief chacha in the lobby. We really need to have dancing and music at these technology events.

Crisis & Blogging Musts

I found it ironic that today’s Corporate Weblog Manifesto Session on good public relations for blog writing and crisis communications was driven by Buzz Bruggeman, Robert Scoble and Anil Dash, none of whom are in the communications business, or are they??????

For those of you who know Buzz, you know that he's a lawyer and CEO of a small software company, but he’s also a helluva marketer. His belief is beyond Doc’s ‘companies are conversations:’ products are conversations.

Anil makes more sense since marketing is an integral part of his new business development role at Six Apart. Robert is really an evangelist; a really good one. He’s someone who is getting paid by a large company to blog, monitor trends, and to communicate. He is a PR machine without even meaning to be one. Why? Because he’s transparent, fair, interesting, smart, and intuitive.

A few tips from this threesome:

Build a great relationship network before you start blogging. Build those relationships first and establish credibility ‘before’ you write. Tell the truth and be authentic. (We keep hearing the word authentic……love the word since its how I live my life today and ……. always have. It’s critical in your life and this should just extend to your writing and your corporate values). A good blog is authoritative and passionate. (We keep hearing these two words as well – a common theme). Link to your competitors and say good things about them… If you don’t have the answers, say so. If your life is in turmoil or you’re unhappy, don’t write. (I had to laugh at this one, since I did write about my grandfather’s death. Frankly, I think there are a few exceptions to the rule and one is where you can blog about something that ‘frees you’ from turmoil in a way that isn’t aggressive or angry and that can serve others) Never lie. (Some of these are basic morality lessons we teach children early on…..or should). Post quickly on good news or bad news. (Having said that, it’s better to be slower and right, than faster and wrong). If you screw up, acknowledge it. Fast. Don’t assume that because you’re posting something on a blog that is not widely read, that it won’t get out there…..and eventually be widely read and linked to. What you post something on your blog, know that it ‘could end up’ in the New York Times. Know the information gatekeepers. If you refer to Gladwell’s Blink, you learn that there’s a short period of time to get the word out there ‘when necessary’ i.e., in a crisis communications situation. “Who can talk to a lot of people in a short period of time and get the word out?” Be the authority on your industry or product and be a ‘master of it.’ Know who’s talking about you and what their perceptions are. Never change the URL of your weblog. Underpromise and over deliver.

Girl Time at Blogging Conferences

I wanted to write a whole piece on 'where's all the women?' at yet another blogging conference.......the same applies to general technology conferences, but I was pleasantly surprised that roughly a quarter of this audience are women.

I met Molly here, who calls herself an educator. She's really a technology educator, but one who does a fabulous job at bridging the gap between technologists and marketers. After quietly thinking about the 'where's all the women issue,' Molly pipes up and tells me that she's moderating a panel at South by Southwest (SXSW) this year precisely about this topic.

Instead of hanging out with the male geeks until 3 in the morning talking about web interface design, corporate blogging tools and ROI, I ended up turning in early and catching up one-on-one with Halley, one of my favorite bloggers and.....people. And guess what? We didn't talk about technology once in over two hours.

Paying Mortgages with Blogs

One of the best lines from yesterday's speakers came from Chris Pirillo. When asked if he makes enough money from his blog to pay his mortgage, he said with thunder as he referenced the entire audience, "I make enough money to pay everyone's mortgages."

And then he quickly added, "Not that I'm prepared to....." Classic. I'd add, I didn't learn anything in the session about how to make money........not unless its for a blog and name with existing brand recognition.

Art of Great Blog Writing

Halley Suitt and Stowe Boyd talk about the art of fabulous writing for business blogs at the Blog Business Summit. Yup, I'm still here. We're getting close to the end of Day 1. More live blog coverage of the event tomorrow.

A few tips for great blog writing:

Have passion for what you write about and get close to the things and events that cover what you're passionate about (not unlike what Robert Scoble said in an earlier session). A passionate voice wins every time. A blog must be fresh and pose a unique perspective. Write about something that is newsworthy and follows a particular trend. The more often that you post the better, but don't blog just to blog. The content must be compelling and of value to your readers. The blogs you want to read have a voice, so when you write, sound like your blog. Be creative with your headlines and show your voice 'in the headlines' and in your post. Be authentic (you hear the truth in the voice on the blog - goes back to transparency). Use things of this world that are easy to see. Creating a visual in your readers mind is powerful. Read and then write.

Stowe talks about finding your 'true voice.' The most potent aspect of good writing is to put yourself directly in the story. When you have strong emotional commitment to something, not only will your character will come through in a compelling way, but you'll be more likely to 'tell a good story.'

While brevity is encouraged, he suggests that you occasionally rant on your blog to add to the seductiveness of your 'voice.' Add to this something we have heard before: there's no smart companies, there's only smart conversations.

On Provocative Blogging

I haven't really done this but perhaps I should start. We all fear that by posting something too provocative on a blog that is read by your clients, your boss, partners and customers, that you'll be canned or even worst, lose respect.

Being provocative is a good way to get discovered. If you study humans, you understand that we love stories. What makes a good story? Look at Star Wars. It’s about conflict between good and evil; conflict between two forces. If there’s conflict between two opposing forces and view points, there’s a good story. Good stories are what will get people to visit your site and come back for more.

Passion & Authority are Key

Robert Scoble talks about the concept of ‘pitching a blogger.’ He suggests that not only should you identify a connector and pitch the connector, but pitch the 5-50 people around the connector, i.e., the 5-50 people that the connector ‘hangs with,’ reads and trusts.

He suggests that you try to influence those around the connector's sphere and by doing this, you create a movement.

Passionate people decide something will happen. The cycle between the early adopter blogger writing about a topic or issue and the press picking it up is getting shorter. Talk about the power of influence.

Robert says, "people ask me what I should do if I want to start a blog?" Robert suggests that they read fifty blogs for two weeks, subscribe to blogs that you care about and link to blog posts you find compelling.

On "what makes a good blog?" Two key things according to Scoble. Passion and Authority.

The important points are these: how excited are you, how often do you post, where do you go to get the information you post about, and how often do you get close to the thing that you're blogging about, i.e., an event, an expert, a product.

He also refers to Chris Anderson's Long Tail. Bottom Line: Don't worry about the fact that you only have five people reading your blog; care about which five people read your blog.

Chris Pirillo on Revenue Models

Chris Pirillo starts his discussion reminding us that he was the first person to say that email is dead. He says, "Our ultimate goal is that our patron gets information in the way they want to get information and......how do we monetize this stuff."

Its not that email is going away; its that mass delivery of communication via email is dead. But marketing via the use of blogs and other communications vehicles needs to change. Chris hates marketers because he doesn't feel like a human being when he deals with them. "Talk to me like I'm a human - get rid of the 'corporate marketing language,' and be transparent."

Using blogs and 'moving content,' is great coming from Chris and his blog, which is already a 'brand,' but someone from the audience asks, "how does this translate from a person who has a brand to a company with a business model? How does a business use adsense to make money?"

Chris says, "If a website is nothing more than a brochure, if there’s no dynamic content to it, adsense isn’t going to work." You need to have dynamic content that is of value to your reader.

Other tools: he gives a plug for Copernic Desktop Search, which is free to consumers, which will also support Firefox and Mozilla in the future.

Good stuff but I'm not sure I have a clearer idea of how to make money here. Baking corporate blogging tools into CRM and content management systems will yield an ROI but that's a different conversation.

Canter on Our Media

It's the Marc and Chris show. Chris Pirillo and Marc Canter are now on stage at the Blog Business Summit.

Marc and JD announced Our Media in New York this week. The concept of Our Media has been Marc's passion for years, which is the ability for artists and consumers to upload their vidoes, audio, and text to the Internet archive and get unlimited bandwith for free.

Marc talks about industry trends, including grassroots journalism via the blogosphere, guerilla marketing, getting rid of your internal team and outsourcing. We're mainly talking about distributed knowledge via open source, strategic consulting and blogging. Everyone has their own angle of how to combine consulting with blogging and he refers to Chris Pirillo, Stowe Boyd and Mitch Ratcliff as key examples.

He gets into digital lifestyle aggregators (DLAs), which he claims are the next generation portals, for hardware companies, ISPs, existing software entities, major brands and media companies. Social networking and open source infrastructure are both part of this.

Then in typical Marc Canter style, he goes on an amusing rant after singing to the audience while Chris sets up his laptop.

Web 1.0 was about a browser on top of Mac or Windows and Web 2.0 has a number of key characteristics to it beyond two platforms.

Beyond being 'web-based,' people can now ping Amazon and get a review, go to flickr, to share photos with others and attach key words to those photographs, and visit de.licio.us to share weblinks.

We're now sharing MP3 playlists, which is a creative form of expression. Whether its Typepad, Blogger, Tribe or Friendster, we can tap into registries and be a part of these sites and communities directly. We can ping it and use it. The web is now open to the rest of us.

Live From Seattle's Blog Biz Summit

I'm blogging live from the Blog Business Summit in Seattle. Robert Scoble is first up at the podium, who is covering the background of blogs, how they got started, what led to their popularity, why they're increasingly relevant and of value in business.

There's a bottle of red wine and cheese on the table left over from Robert's 40th birthday party this week. The relevance? Nearly everything in Robert's life comes to him through the Internet, including the wine, the cheese, relationships with the people in the room, a list of Seattle plumbers or fabulous wines.

Blogs for Scoble have not only been of significant PR value to Microsoft, but have brought him in touch with so many people in the room, many of which are early bloggers - not just in the high tech industry but about other topics he's interested in.

He started out monitoring a few hundred blogs and through a news aggregator, he now gets through a thousand blogs in a few hours every night. It's not possible to go to every blog when you're monitoring close to 1,000 blogs, but what is possible is to track 'what's new on these blogs' each day since chances are that only 200-300 of those blogs have been updated in the past ten hours.

Instead of having to go to each individual blog and parse that page to figure out what's new, he learns about the latest news inside his Outlook email client.

Scoble jumps from bootstrapping to link strategies early on versus today to the importance of passion and authority inside a blog to the growth of grassroots journalism and what that means.

Journalists are starting to realize that those who are the most passionate in society about a particular topic are those who are investing a significant amount of time 'getting close to the creators' of their passion.

In discussing the effect of bootstrapping of blogs, he uses Winer as an example who not only monitored and wrote about blogs, but evangelized about it to the right people early on. Clearly, the word of mouth network is becoming more and more efficient.

Amateur Blog Discussions & Todd English in Seattle

I arrive in Seattle the night before the start of the Blog Business Summit to discover that Robert Scoble and Buzz Bruggeman are hanging out at Robert's house finalizing their presentation for the event somewhere on the East Side (means nothing to a non-Seattle resident), and Halley is fast asleep in one of Robert's guest rooms.

I call Marc Canter to get a voice mail (he's usually at a fabulous restaurant, so its good to check in) and I find that Six Apart's Anil Dash is still in San Francisco and catching one of those early morning flights that most people I know promise they'll never take. God Bless Him.

So that means I have to explore the beercasting bloggers shindig alone and thereafter scout out the local Seattle waterfront scene. This resulted in two interesting encounters and extremely late (post midnight) news stories from the BBC inside my Marriott hotel room.

Todd English's Fish Club is in my hotel and here, I meet the new head of European marketing for RealNetworks' game division, who by the way, is targeting 40+ year old women.

I didn't quite 'get this,' since my only client targeting gamers (Xitel) is targeting the 18-35 male geek crowd. I'm not in my forties but even as mid-thirty female who will explore any new technology, I wasn't particularly interested in any of their gaming offerings.

Great choice of creamy buttery chardonnay in the hotel lounge, where I order dinner and learn that the RealNetworks European 'gamers marketing head' has no idea what a blog is. (I had to spell it. Literally - no idea.) I think I need to do my own research on who's aware and who's not......a bit like Steve Rubel did at Grand Central recently, but in Silicon Valley, the feedback could be more profound.

After my RealNetworks 'lounge discussion,' I meet a Scout for the MBA, who had less of a clue what a blog was than my RealNetworks encounter, but interestingly enough, had possibly more interest in its development and how to start one.

Beercasting: Podcasting with a Buzz

Steve Broback tells me that he'll be at the Beercasting Tour in Seattle tonight. I thought he was kidding, but no, here it is: Beercasting America Tour, which they tout as Podcasting with a Buzz. So I'm asking myself again: is this for real?

I'm not sure what to expect, but I'll try to stop by when I land in Seattle tonight. My guess is that they'll be drinking beer and playing pool and like Halley so well points out about "geek fests," no dancing.

Check the Beercast site for the details.

RSS on Market Intelligence at Syndicate

IDG's Syndicate conference is picking up steam. With four months go go (held in May in NYC), Syndicate is adding to their line-up and fleshing out the schedule.

On May 18, client NewsGator's founder Greg Reinacker will speak on RSS: Market Intelligence & Lead Generation. More to follow as we get closer to the event.

BlogBizSummit Next Week

I'm off to Seattle this weekend to attend the upcoming BlogBusinessSummit. Tom Peters apparently blogged that he was planning to attend recently.

Sessions can be found here and the line up of panelists include co-founder of Weblogs Brian Alvey, Intelliseek's Pete Blackshaw, Corante's Stowe Boyd, Six Apart's Anil Dash, Biz Stone, Halley Suitt, Chris Pirillo and Robert Scoble.

Craigs List Craig Speaks to us

I participated in an interesting discussion with Craig's List Craig Newmark about what's happening at Craig's List at tonight's SD Forum event.

We learn a few figures that may be new to the rest of the world??

1.7 billion page views per month
7 million unique visitors per month
77 cities and they're adding others, when 'in the mood' to do so. Interesting comment.
They have more interest then they can keep up with.

I met Craig for the first time at the last Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Then, and sadly now, I still spend a lot of time on Craigs List searching for not just a house to live in, but perhaps more fortunately searching for a graphic designer, a web expert, an assistant and a media relations pro.

A few things worth noting from tonight:

He compared Scott Adams on organizational behavior to the way they do business. He says, "sometimes instinct and experience is a better way to run a business," after saying that "we don't have a business plan." They view themselves as a community service and their agenda is all about 'helping people.' Their 'numbers' are growing almost purely by word of mouth and I got the feeling he was very proud of the fact.

A few questions from the audience:

What about social networks?
C: Live Journal and Six Apart are looking at that, i.e., friend of a friend and referrals, building communities. We have thought about it, and think its important but just haven't gotten to it yet.

What about RSS? Where do you see that taking you?
C: RSS poses server load issues and we have to get smarter about it. Everyone is jumping on the RSS bandwagon so we're there too. It's a smart way to get the word out to a lot of people.

What about citizen journalism?
C: Big believer in it and I think what Dan Gillmor is doing is great and also recommend his latest book.

What has your biggest challenge been since starting Craigs List?
C: Chasing after the bad guys and....how do we deal with them. Whether its scammers, spammers, people who post ads for things that don't exist, etc. We need to do more self policing and also reward people who help chase down the 'bad guys' for us.

I found it amusing how many times he said things like "I or we fanticize a lot about....and my instincts tell me to or about, etc..." He's definitely more of an instinct 'guy" than a business plan kinda guy. Loved his wit and great sense of humor.

And then there's the greatest line of the night: After John Stewart's appearance on Crossfire, 'as far as I'm concerned, he's the 'most trusted name in journalism.'

VloggerCon this Weekend

JD Lasica told me about VloggerCon this week, which will be held on Saturday, January 22 in NYC at the Parsons School of Design.

Yup, just like podcasting has become hot, vlogging has become the next new 'rage,' as we used to say in South Africa.

This is the first conference dedicated to vlogging and its free to attendees. More on the agenda here.

In the Masses' Media session, they will highlight the opportunties to use video for peer-to-peer storytelling, newsgathering, and expression. And like the early BloggerCons, there's a discussion dedicated to how people will make money from videoblogging, as well as the importance of compelling content.

For the geeks in the audience (all), they'll talk about the various tools available (VogBrowser, me-tv, ANT, Vimeo, Prodigem, Vblog Central, Digital Bicycle) and the issues around bandwidth/storage limitations. Marc Canter is planning to be there and will lead Network of the Future and the round-up.

Craig Newmark at SD Forum

Craig Newmark of Craig's List is speaking at the next SD Forum event, which is this Thursday night, January 20 at PARC (George Pake Auditorium) in Palo Alto.

It starts at 7 pm (networking before) and will be moderated by Maya Draisin, Co-founder of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

The event is co-hosted by the Computer History Museum, The Institute for the Future, ACM San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, CSPA, and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. The theme for the 2004-2005 series of talks is "The Software Commons." I've attended a few of their speaker series events since I arrived in the Bay Area and they're worth checking out.

USA Today CES Blog

For those of you who have been blogging or monitoring blogs for at least a year, you'll recall the debate over CES banning bloggers last year. I guess when a media giant like USA Today gets involved, the playing field changes.

Then again, perhaps it was the fact that Webster has added blogs to the dictionary, blogging is one of the hottest trends of the past year, Dan Gillmor leaves the San Jose Merc News to focus on grassroots journalism, CNN adds RSS and so many other developments.

I discovered the USA Today CES blog this week and learned a bit more about it from a few USA Today buddies. (I'm pestering one of them to start blogging, just so they understand what it 'feels' like to blog on your own site with your own voice).....

Apparently they contributed to the blog from CES by sending email updates which someone at USA Today posted to the blog upon receipt.

Italian Food

I forgot to post this humorous photograph of Ann Revell-Pechar and I with CNET's Patrick Houston after dinner one night in Vegas last week. He may consider it compromising but if he's smart, he'll just consider himself a lucky man. If this is the effect that fabulous Italian food has on women.........

White Stretch Limos

Client Teleo's CEO Peter Sisson and I in front of our mean long white stretch limo in Las Vegas last week. Our driver's name was Abe: visualize dark glasses, dark eyes when you could see them, dark pants, dark trenchcoat. Abe should have been in the photo with us.

iUpload & Teleo Invited to Present at DEMO

Clients iUpload and Teleo have been selected to present new technology solutions at DEMO 2005.

iUpload is a leading content management and corporate blogging solution provider and Teleo will launch a new VoIP offering targeted to consumers and mobile professionals.

Rigorously screened from hundreds of technologies from around the world, they have been chosen as one of 70 of the world's most promising new technologies.

DEMO will be held in Scottsdale Arizona from February 13-15, 2005 and demonstrators run the gamut from two-person start-ups to multi-million dollar corporations.

Since DEMO 2005 is marking its 15th year, 15 of the world class innovators who have presented over the years have been invited, including Salesforce.com’s CEO Marc Benioff, Dan Bricklin, Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page, DEMO god Kai Krause, TiVo’s Mike Ramsay, as well as Palm visionaries Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins. Stewart Alsop will also be honored for his early vision of DEMO.

Blogging & Credibility Conference

I just heard about this conference at Harvard on Blogging and Credibility on January 21 and 22. It seems as soon as I leave Boston, they host a number of very cool conferences about things I'm interested in - but why Boston in the middle of winter?

It's also 'bloody cold' in Boston this time of year - trust me, that's why I moved here. Conferences in Boston should be held over the summer or sometime in October when the leaves are changing.

The conference is being organized by Berkman Center at the Harvard Law School and while the content sounds fabulous, I'm not thrilled about the timing and I should add that its invitation only.

It's right before the BlogBusinessSummit in Seattle on January 24-25 immediately followed by Blog University in Napa on January 26-27. There's also a small wikis and blog conference in Miami at the tail end of the month. January sure does seem to be the month of new blogging conferences.

MacWorld Opens

East Coast friends and journalist buddies are in town for MacWorld at the Moscone in San Francisco this week. I'm still recovering from CES. It's the first time I've ever been to Vegas, shivered the whole time, got stuck in a snow storm and hugged and exchanged handshakes with at least 50 people who had some kind of bug.

So now I'm fighting a million strains of some kind of cold. I'm still going to try to make it to the show tomorrow or Thursday.....I'm getting too many emails and voice mails saying "where are you?"

CNET is providing excellent coverage of the latest and greatest on the Mac - all announced this week.

Zumanity Production in Vegas

I also saw Zumanity when I was in Vegas, which is an erotic side of Cirque du Soleil - sort of. It is touted as an exploration of sex and human sexuality. One local review had this to say: "Zumanity’s" look at love, sensuality and eroticism, in all its forms, is ultimately a story of human emotion, the nature of beauty, and the acceptance of differences."

Ka was so far superior to Zumanity in so many ways but its unique and shouldn't be compared really - difficult to do since its another Cirque production.

There is one near-nude scene, where two dancers slowly drape each other and hold poses....a unique mix of yoga, modern dance, meditation and athletic sensual movement. I'd easily see that scene over and over again.

I love this - so American. "Zumanity" is not going to be a production for everyone. Their investigation of sexuality is quite frank and could be off-putting to some. Not everyone is going to be comfortable seeing strapped on phalluses or two men lovingly wrestling with each other."

This was hardly risquey; I probably would not have invited my grandparents to see the production, but can we please move away from this puritanical view of anything sensual in this country?

This is a more accurate account: It awakens the most primal urges to a new form of eroticism that blends movement, acrobatics and beautiful bodies with the sensual caress of the human voice and the insistent pulse of exotic rhythms.

Vegas Monorail Needs Rethinking

This was supposed to be a good thing.....a great way to avoid long taxi lines from one of the major "strip" hotels, such as Paris, New York New York or MGM Grand to the Convention Center.

They're clearly not prepared for cold weather (it snowed in Las Vegas today) nor are they prepared for 300,000 people passing through its gates. We stood outside in the freezing cold rain and snow waiting for a train to stop. An hour and a half later.....

Yet, while most of us were frustrated over the service, or rather, severe lack of service, when it works, it works...

Great, as long as a convention isn't in town, which of course it the only time I'm ever here.

Monorail: A Godsend

For those of you who have ever been to a convention in Vegas, you know what a godsend this is. The monorail re-opened on Christmas Eve and added service from the MGM Grand to the Convention Center this month.

New Comm Forum Panel on Power Laws & You

New Communications Forum or as some refer to as Blog University has added Corante to their agenda. A new panel called True Voice: The Power Laws and You will be moderated by Stowe Boyd, who will be joined by client NewsGator's Greg Reinacker and a couple of others who have not yet been finalized.

Elizabeth Albrycht also posts an update on her blog. The panel will be videocast live and is being held north of San Francisco in Napa from January 26-27.

Panel Description:
Reed's Law states that the value of an online network is based on the number of groups that people form, not just the number of people. As networks become very large, this grouping phenomenon leads to interesting dynamics, since popular search engines rank order websites and blogs based on the number of incoming links. Being more connected -- more referenced -- increases the likelihood of being discovered today, and the probability of gaining more links in the future: the so-called Networking Power Laws. Translated into public relations, these facts mean that the more connections to your website, or the more mentions about your product and services, the better. This panel will discuss "digital reputation management," and the emerging tools and methods for managing brand reputation in the blogosphere.

The Queen's Wave....or not

Have you ever tried to pick someone up at the Las Vegas Convention Center, especially in one of those long stretch limos? Nearly all the stretch limos in Vegas are white, so the only thing that can distinguish you is a sign on both sides.

I found myself wildly waving and screaming out the limo window today, while on the phone with the person I was screaming to, in today's case, a reporter from Newsweek. It was hardly a dignified queen's wave as it should have been from this distinguished vehicle.

In the future, I'm going to have a designer create a brightly colored wacky sign that stops traffic - out of all the limos we passed in Vegas, I didn't see one. We needed a Purple Cow today.

Demos, Camera Crews, Sushi & Chocolate

We participated in the ShowStoppers media event tonight in Las Vegas. Yup, we're still at CES and will be networking, in back-to-back meetings and press events through Sunday.

Bruce Fredrickson and Ben Davis demonstrate SOUNDaround on the show floor:

Here's a happy team after two broadcast TV interviews, a radio spot and hundreds of press who stopped by the booth and were amazed at the quality of this surround sound complete home theater experience for $99. This may be the very thing that gets people to think twice about upgrading to 5.1 after they hear the quality of this slick gizmo at such an attractive price point.

This event is always a mishmash of user groups, small newsletters, top tier business press and camera crews. I always feel like an obnoxious used car salesman when I chase down a camera crew, and yet its essential for a consumer technology launch. In between chasing men (mostly men) with microphones, you gulp down sushi, chocolate and cheap chardonnay.

There's always a carving and pasta station and the row of deep fried pancakes, rolls and crab cakes for the serious geeks. RealNetworks hosted a party with SmashMouth at the Mandalay Bay's House of Blues until midnight. I remember taking in six parties in one night and yet this CES, it was tough to make two.

Chris Pirillo Event at CES

Chris Pirillo will be hosting an event at Piero's Italian Restaurant near the Las Vegas Convention Center on Thursday and Friday from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm.

Chris will give a live radio talk show and plans to interview "special guests." I'm not sure if I can make this as I have back-to-back meetings, but it sounds worth checking out if you can fit it into your CES schedule.....and if you're not in Vegas, you can tune in online.

They will be using the WorldVibrations Radio Station (WVRS). It's a professional quality "radio station in a box" for on-the-air, Internet, corporate network, satellite or in-house broadcasting. It performs most of the functions of a radio station with the exception of transmitter, offering fully automated “on-air” studio, production studio and streaming media encoding.

Xitel Announces SOUNDaround at CES

Client Xitel announces their new SOUNDaround today at CES. SOUNDaround will transform existing two speaker Hi-Fi Systems or Stereo TV into a vibrant home theater experience.

SOUNDaround is a high quality audio solution that gives users a complete home theater-like experience without the need for expensive equipment or complex installation. This is really designed for those who do not want to upgrade their existing stereo system to get a complete surround sound home theater experience.

They will be showing it at the ShowStoppers media event at the MGM Grand tonight - Thursday January 6 from 6:30-9:30 pm. Stop by if you're in Las Vegas. Booth Number B4 near the Texas Instruments guys.

Cool box design too. Excuse the promo push here, but look for it in stores starting this month. They will have one version for consumers and one specifically dedicated to gamers.

Early CES Highlights

Computerworld covers some of the pre-show highlights of CES, which includes significant updates and announcements around "really big TVs," portable audio players, smart homes and connected products, DVDs, cell phones and printers as well as batteries and the importance of longer battery power.

More CES highlights can be found here.

PC World also does an excellent job at listing ongoing CES news and events and breaks it down by category for easy viewing, i.e., plasma, electronics, streaming media, storage, Linux, etc.

Enough already. It's 4 am here; time for bed.

Sony Dinner

I heard Sony had an exclusive press dinner tonight in Vegas - am curious what their pitch was and who attended. Will try to find out more and report back. Warning: if you see typos in any of my blog posts this week, feel free to let me know, but cut me some slack as I have a feeling I'll be running on 3 hours of sleep a night.

Press Gathering: Nine Irishmen

We ended up at the Nine Fine Irishmen at the New York New York in Vegas tonight for a small press soiree of about thirty people. Who chose this fine but noisy pub? None other than CRN's Mike Vizard.

This was after a quick sushi stop at a Japanese restaurant in the MGM Grand.

Some of the really old timers were there (I hope I am forgiven for this comment, but hell, according to Jeff Tarter, I'm part of the dinosaur tech crew - still not sure if that's a compliment or not). Here's Ziff's Jim Louderback and Ben Gottesman chatting with clients.

Then there's this great shot of Mike Vizard with and Sam Whitmore. Hey Mike, why don't you have a blog yet? Or if you do, I can't seem to find it.

And a really warm shot of Ann and I with Teleo's CEO and Chairman Peter Sisson and Wendell Brown.

Others who strolled in included PC World's Steve Bass, Tynan Wood, CNET's Christy Andrade, PC Magazine's Bill Howard, Bill Machrone, Oliver Kaven, and Craig Ellison........and Robin Raskin showed up towards the end who I haven't seen in a year - always great to see her.

Gates Keynote at CES

The room was packed to the limit and they had to turn people away at this year's CES keynote, which was given by Microsoft's Bill Gates. His complete speech can be found here.

I haven't found much external coverage on it yet, but then again it only happened a few hours ago and most of the reporters I know and ran into decided not to attend. I'm finding that press who skip keynotes are on the rise.....they would rather miss the crowds, the noise and an opportunity to be pitched and advertised to by a large corporate CEO.

One remarked - I can probably see it on my hotel TV screen or just get the important key points tomorrow morning in the press room.

The BBC covered it however and noted that Gates made no announcement about the next generation of Xbox games console, which so many had hoped for.

He talked about how gadgets are increasingly working together to help people manage multimedia content around the home and when they are on the move.

Can you believe this show is now up to a coverage area of 1.5 million square feet? It's no wonder the taxis are moving at all.

More to come as everyone scours the floor for the latest trends in digital imaging, storage technologies, thinner flat screen and high-definition TVs, wireless and portable technologies, gaming, and broadband technologies.

CES Day 1

CES has begun. It started with a gorgeous drive up the coastline from Half Moon Bay to San Francisco airport. I'm starting to understand why people move here - the views were so mindblowing that I wanted to stop the car at every turn.....a little different than my drives to Logan along the Mass Pike.

Did anyone else taking off out of SFO notice a really strange odor passing through security? It lingered for hours and wasn't something that anyone could recognize. Apparently they're investigating. I'd describe it as foul. Extremely foul.

Las Vegas really is a wacky place - anytime of year. It's hard to explain a Vegas experience to anyone who has never been and I suddenly realized that my client Xitel was flying into Vegas for the first time from Australia.

As many times as I've been here, I'm always amazed by the mile long taxi ques, the endless lights along the strip, the gaud, the charm, the tourismo culture, the billboards plastered with ads for shows, conventions and those trying to get noticed at them.

We are staying at the MGM Grand this year, which is in the middle of the strip, directly across the street from the protruding fabricated New York New York's Statue of Liberty. Is there a place anywhere on earth any tackier than Las Vegas? I'm struggling to think of one.

NewsGator & DivX Team Up to Enable RSS on TVs....

Announcement at CES today. Client NewsGator and DivX enable RSS news and online information on TVs through CE devices, DVD players & set-top boxes.

Through this program, users will be able to easily access RSS news and information feeds from NewsGator's Online Service on their TVs through low-cost CE devices.

For those not familiar with DivX, their connected program is a comprehensive technology initiative that will bring together online service providers, independent software vendors, integrated cirucuit (IC) manufacturers and consumer electronics (CE) original equipment manufacturers to create interoperable products and services that enable consumers to easily access digital media from networked devices throughout the home.

The first DivX Connected products are expected to hit the market in the second half of 2005.

CES Around the Corner

There hasn't been much time to write with a recent move combined with preparation for CES in Vegas which starts later this week. This show is out of control this year - a bit of pre-show coverage talks about its increase in size, which now covers the length of three football fields.

I must admit.....it doesn't have the same appeal as it used to and its hard to imagine just how much I used to look forward to Comdex, CES and sometimes NAB in Vegas every year. It's a great place to catch up with industry pals, conduct meetings you couldn't otherwise have and see the latest new gadgets - early. Thankfully this year, we have a hummer and a limo and all seem to have rooms on the strip.

The main focus this year will likely center around mobile devices, digital cameras, DVD players, home theater convergence solutions, camera phones, high definition TV, and sound systems....speaking of which, my client Xitel is launching a fabulous sub $100 product that will transform your living room. Stay tuned.

Expect many of my posts to revolve around CES over the next week. Luckily this blog is not strictly about technology nor is it written by a "geek," meaning I'll write about some of the more fun and interesting aspects of Vegas as well. How often? That will depend on wireless hot spots, so you may find a ton of coverage at the end of the week with not much in between.

Xitel in Vegas

Client Xitel is launching a new home theater surround sound product for under $100 at CES this year. If you plan to attend, check out their site this week or you can find more information here.

They will be at the ShowStoppers event at the MGM Grand on Thursday night between 6:30 - 9:30 pm showing off their new SOUNDaround system.

This event is primarily designed for press so you can't just walk in off the street, but if you have press credentials and who knows, they may honor some bloggers this year, stop by and see us.

DaVinci Institute on Blogging

Client Greg Reinacker will be speaking at the DaVinci Institute in Denver on January 15, 2005. If you'll be in the area, check it out.

They will mostly cover the basics of blogging, including:

--What's a Blog?
--History of Blogging
--Types of Blogs
--Latest Trends
--Blogging Software
--Software Options
--Customization
--RSS and Syndication
--Tracking Software
--Writing Your Blog
--What voice will you use?
--What do terms like 'fisking' and 'permalink' mean?
--What is the etiquette of blogging?
--Good HTML coding practices
--Adding photos and other graphics
--Promoting Your Blog
--Search Engine Registration & Optimization
--Specialty Blog Search Engines
--Making Money on Your Blog
--Best Practices

IDG Syndication/RSS Event

IDG is holding a new RSS conference called Syndicate next May in New York.

I didn't realize IDG was taking RSS this seriously. Apparently so. They feel that its time for a gathering of marketing and advertising execs, publishers and content developers to discuss the implications of the new trends in syndication and what this means for various industries moving forward.

Indeed, major corporations are increasingly using blogs as marketing, customer service and knowledge management tools.

One of their discussion points includes the controversy over the death of email marketing: Marketing and advertising executives struggle with how to integrate RSS advertising into their marketing campaigns - will it replace or complement email marketing?

PUSH Site Launched

The next PUSH Conference just launched its new site and while the line-up and content have not been officially posted yet, it's worth keeping your eyes open in the next few weeks as they finalize speakers and sponsors.

It's in its third year and will be held in Minneapolis again at the re-designed Walker Art Center from June 12-14. Fabulous place for a conference and they bring in an interesting blend of top thought leaders and artists. Conversations and speakers at PUSH hone in on the intersection between change, culture and business and what will drive the future across culture and business.

SuperNova 2005 Announced

Kevin Werbach just sent out his first notice on next year's Supernova Conference in San Francisco.

This year, they are partnering with Wharton Business School and the event will be held from June 20-22, 2005.

Highlighting real-world scenarios, Supernova 2005 will offer fresh perspectives on how “connected” technologies are affecting businesspeople, their companies, their industries, and their customers. They plan to hone in on the trends toward decentralization in technology, work, and life, including: distributed e-commerce, pervasive wireless sensors, massively multiplayer virtual worlds, business uses of weblogs, and voice over IP applications.

Bloggers & Great Exchange at Harvard

iUpload and a handful of blogger friends are at Harvard this weekend. Terribly reflective thinking about Boston in December, two weeks before Christmas.....and I understand that they have already had snow and friends have written about holiday parties and dances.

Thursday night, Joe Trippi and others kicked off a Forum on whether the Internet will draft the next president.

A bit of a different twist on Friday when Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan spoke on a panel with Harvard School of Government reps on Citizenship. Are we able to become global citizens?

Craig's List founder Craig Newmark joined Esther Dyson on how the most promising Internet business models have a great deal in common with the most promising political movements.

I wanted to be in Boston for this....and longed to be stranded in some Cambridge Victorian for the entire week due to a snowstorm that kept me captive.

All in the name of transition. All part of the process.

Don't Miss Harvard's Internet & Society Event

If you're in Boston this weekend, check out Harvard's Internet & Society 2004 at the Law School.

The line-up is compelling with Jay Rosen discussing what the Internet is doing to political journalism and its public. Joi Ito's talk is: Manifesto for a Better Global Conversation.

Client iUpload's CEO Robin Hopper will also be on a panel talking about iUpload's technology, which is powering a project by Spririt of America & Friends of Democracy (a non-governmental Iraqi organization), officially announced yesterday.

iUpload’s Blog Platform developed an Arabic Blogging Tool, and Spirit of America is funding the development effort, that will make Internet publishing and free expression in the Arab world easy and accessible. The Arabic blogging tool is available at no cost and Spirit of America will host Arabic blogs for free for those working to advance freedom and democracy in the Arab world.

Other fabulous panelists include: Esther Dyson, Dan Gillmor, Joe Trippi, Ethan Zuckerman and David Weinberger.

Jay Rosen's Interpretation

I really like Jay Rosen's definition of and perspective on how he 'experienced' BloggerCon.

It is for me one of the primary pleasures of BloggerCon that a good number of participants--the majority, in fact--seem to think they are attending a tech conference, a little matter of interpretation that separates me from them. In my view BloggerCon is not a tech conference--it's about democracy, and the blogger's "producerist" vision of it--but I am perfectly happy when others define the event differently. Part of a good conference is the clash of interpretations, which includes definitions of what the event is for and even which "normal" will be the norm.

Blog Business Summit Looks Great

Check out BlogBusinessSummit, which will be held from January 24-25th in Seattle. While BloggerCon targets users, the emphasis behind BlogBusinessSummit is "the impact of blogs on business." Robert Scoble and other industry gurus and bloggers are already signed up to speak.

It's a fabulous line-up with an in-depth look at topics we'd all love to see at one conference. Take a look:

-Legal Strategies
-Writing for Blogs
-Marketing Strategies and Tactics
-Building Traffic: Posting isn't Enough
-Essential Tools: Life-Changing Add-ons, Scripts, and Services
-Dealing with Bloggers: Partnering and Defense Strategies
-Enhancing Internal Communications with Blogs, Wikis
-Knowing the Numbers: Traffic, Click-through, Sales and ROI
-The Entrepreneurial Blog: Monetizing Your Interests
-Corporate Blogging: Strategy and Policy
-Customer Communication: Using Blogs to Enhance Dialog
-Blog Business Models: What Strategies Make Money
-Driving Traffic: Linking Strategies, Search Engines and You
-Picking a Platform: Blogging Engines Compared
-Blogs and Branding
-Content Strategies and Tactics
-Good Blog Design: Speed, Accessibility, Transparency, Clarity
-Collaborative Blogging: Team Workflow and Tools

Fat Man Sings & Wraps Up

Winer's end-of-day session at BloggerCons have traditionally been called "Fat Man Sings." I was ready for another round of This Land is Your Land, but we didn't sing.

A handful of comments and summaries from users in the audience:

“I think its great that we have a room full of dedicated bloggers here and hope we can all unite behind the idea that we can open up electronic voting.” “I think its about creating content that is really useful to real people in communities rather than about writing something glamorous or becoming famous.” “It’s great to see that blogging is more than just me voicing opinions in my pajamas.” “I’ve made more valuable connections in three months speaking my mind on my blog than I have in the last ten years.” “I thought this would be a great venue to talk about whats missing in the blogosphere, which is a complete directory. I’d also like to see a separate session for working on things that are missing.” “I’d like to see a blogging session for the Enterprise.” And this one sums up the conference and where we're at right now extremely well. It also brings a smile. "When I went to the first BloggerCon, I went home and said 'Cool, a cult of bloggers.' "When I went to the second BloggerCon, I went home and said 'Cool, a community of bloggers.' "At the third Bloggercon, I’ll go home and say, 'Cool, a nation of bloggers.'"

Making Money With Blogs

Doc Searls hosts a session on Making Money at BloggerCon III.

In the beginning, it was all about ad placement, not unlike early Internet days. Clearly, we need to have conversations about opportunities well beyond advertising and what its going to take to get there - for the content provider, the blogger (and often they're the same thing) and the consumer. "I've been a writer all my life and suddenly I was a content provider," says Doc.

Like all the sessions at BloggerCon, Doc's session was participatory and interactive. He asks us a number of questions through a series of informal slides:

Do you have an audience or do they go to your blog for the ads?
Do you consider yourself a brand?
Would you stop in the middle of a conversation to deliver a commercial message?
Would you take money to talk about something you wouldn’t talk about otherwise? (or the chance that they might carry a commercial message).
Which noun best describes you? Are you a person or are you a medium?

Someone shouts out “I’m a large medium.” Standard for this crowd - ya gotta love it. This is the entertainment I sacrifice a Saturday for.

Doc continues.

When you blog, am I delivering an experience or a message?
How does blogging increase your market value outside your blog?
How much more or less Google juice do you get by running advertising on your blog?
Do you want blogging to help you make money?
Is it by exercising and enlarging your authority?
Or by taking money to deliver commercial messages?

Phil Wolff and Doc were discussing grants earlier in the day - would you blog for a grant? He throws all of these questions and this issue to the crowd.

A user asks, "are people doing this for personal gratification or is it really to make money?

Doc's response: "a lot of people I think should be a blogger have no interest because they don’t have the right attitude." The right attitude you wonder? This is what he means and those of us who love to write, have made a living from writing or have hidden in the background for too long and need to voice our opinion, understand. It's this: Writers suffer from the illusion that the world really need to hear what they have to say.

Doc asks us, "how many people are in a business they wouldn’t be in had they not been blogging or as a direct result of their blog?" WOW! 25%+ of users raise their hands.

A blog forces me to have an opinion about something every day, says a blogger whose day job is a futurist in the healthcare industry. As an early blogger, I agree. Blogging forces me pay attention to things I normally wouldn't think about, even if its the color of a wall in a cafe. Or what the waitress is wearing.

How does this relate to moving your perceived provocative and compelling thoughts to revenue? Doc asks, "is it worth it?" The futurist says in a more formal but dry and witty tone (he should be British), "absolutely, I’m having a marvelous time. I get so much satisfaction voicing my views."

Then his long term goal 'gets a voice.' "Hopefully over time, my name will build to a point where I'm perceived as a key visionary in this space." What does that mean and how does that lead to profit? He hopes to consult and be asked to speak at leading conferences.

The idea of paid subscriptions is thrown out to the group. Someone asks, "Do you pay people for providing comments because you think they provide substantial value? That’s like saying that we should pay people who submit letters to the editor?"

Someone else adds: "If the point of the blog is that it’s a conversation, then you have to point to another part of the conversation. You have to ask about the blog itself? Does it violate that purpose?"

And another user says, "we all need to be sensitive. To what extent does the traditional media cast negativity on bloggers because of the shills and paid bloggers?" Doc wants this to be fleshed out. I'm thinking the same thing frankly - let's hear examples, so we do.

A major auto manufacturer created a blog (supposedly) from ordinary consumers which outraged bloggers. This crowd feels that there's a trust and credibility issue. As people start to abuse the onsurge of blogs and leverage it more of a commercial setting, we violate basic trust that comes from the bottom up, i.e., the bloggers point of view. It's direct and honest.

David Winer jumps in, "do you ever think about starting a business with people you wouldn’t normally meet that you now have access to because your voice is out there? Does your blog create or open up a new audience for you?"

Dave says that he floats $30-40K on his blog and 'so what?' Dave says, "I use it as a way to talk about my ideas and learn how we can partner and build products together. These are the things that the Internet is really good at doing. Blogs are ways to find people to collaborate and connect with....."

Chris Nolan, who has been writing a successful political blog for nearly two years, disagrees with Winer and the room gets heated again. Chris says, "I don’t sell anything except for my ideas on my blog," and says to Dave - "you're in the software business."

Dave counters and we get a little more volume. Another reason I sacrifice a Saturday.

Dave - "I'm not in the software business."

We're confused.

Chris interjects, "I’m in the business of writing words. Blogging allows me to do that without having to go get a 'real' job."

Chris wants to see her writing turn into revenue. She feels that she has created a business and is using her blog as a tool to get business.

At least half the room claps.

Despite our primary reason for having a blog, making money drives a lot of us.

Even so, the discussion turns back to community and relationships. We're starving for that too.

“Weblogs are relationship tools and they create communities where people begin to respect each other,” comments a user.

Someone else says, "So what we're really talking about here is a new way to do networking?" Perhaps but blogs are so much more. Blogs are incredible laboratories for making tipping points happen really fast.

What I love about sessions that Doc moderates is his warm sense of humor, informal approach and interaction with the audience. And today, his to die-for funky tie die shirt that says Mediawhore.

We then talk about brands. Are all of our blogs brands? Doc doesn't think so. “Reputation is something that is human, its tangible.”

Phil Wolff raises his hand – “There are jobs on Amazon asking for blogging experience. Someone values a portion of what we do enough to list it in a job description. The problem is that its a hyper-competitive marketplace."

A young woman in the crowd raises her hand and says, “I actually get paid to blog. I’ve been promoted to the Director of Internet Outreach." Her feeling is that its not your personal blog that’s going to do it, but she also doesn't think you should 'hide' it from your employer.

The discussion ends on a Jay Rosen note, “In the world of journalism, if you got hired by a traditional news organization, i.e., the Hartford Courant, you are able to draw from the reputation of a newspaper that has been around for decades."

He continues, "As a blogger, you start from zero. Because you have to build trust and reliability, you have to earn links. Learning how to do that from the bottom up, you learn things about trust whereas at the Courant, you inherit it automatically."

"If I were a business, I would invest in the knowledge people have gained from building the blog, because these are the people who really know something about trust. These are the people who use and write blogs. They understand intellectual integrity that they have had to build in the process of building trust.”

Bottom line? Not clear given that this session was more of a brainstorm than a discussion about creating a 'blog revenue plan.' Things that seemed to matter were "building trust and leveraging the trust we have created as a community," and determining what 'perceived value' really was, i.e., Nolan's political words versus a forum for coming up with new ideas and finding people to collaborate with to develop new products.

Jerry, Renee & Doc

Jerry Michalski, Renee Blodgett and Doc Searls at this year's BloggerCon.

Photos Give BloggerCon Color

To get a visual flavor for BloggerCon, the people and the conversations, take a look at Doc's photo album.

Ed Cone on The Election

While the main room was fairly full for Ed Cone’s BloggerCon Election session, I was surprised it wasn’t ‘standing room only.’ Given that this crowd is far more left than right, perhaps people wanted to avoid the feelings of denial, anger and frustration all over again.

To make our discussion more productive, Cone encourages us to focus on what went wrong and what we did right. He refers us to one of his recent articles on Web Politics 2.0, and talks about the importance of making significant change at a local level.

Someone raises their hand and says, “They seemed to be talking at us instead of having a conversation.”

Despite the seachange effect of the Dean campaign, email, not blogging, was still the most effective tool of the campaign.

So, what should the role of blogging be and what can we do to make it instrumental and more sustainable? Clearly, if the blogger becomes more important than the candidate himself, then it becomes a problem.

A blogger is just an amplifier for a message says Robert Scoble.

In the corporate world, we’re arguing the same thing. Should we allow stars to emerge from Microsoft, Sun or Google? These “stars” are being pulled into conversations at the deepest levels.

Ed Cone responds, “this is the power of the local blog in politics.” That poses the question “does it mean that blogging doesn’t scale beyond a certain level?

Jay Rosen says, “We have to get politicans at the highest level to blog themselves. Let’s get someone to try it.” The problem is that politicians don’t have the time because their focus has been and continues to be on fundraising. “Once a candidate really blogs and its really them, they’ll realize that blogging IS fundraising,” says Rosen.

Yet, email remains the most powerful tool.

Larry Lessig, who sits in the back of the room, invited politicians to post on his blog. “One of the reasons it was so difficult was how hard it was to effectively persuade people on the other side,” said Lessig. “The great hope of blogs was a way to get around this – blogs become these small circles who listen to the people they’re talking to opposed to a space where people can talk across groups.”

When we only had broadcasting, we had to hear things we didn’t always want to hear. In villages, there’s a cross pollination of ideas which makes it easier to get to another side of the issue.

The blogosphere’s power is that it is so de-centralized. We have the ability to make lasting change here.

Ed Cone asks Lessig what we should be looking at and doing in 2005 and 2006?

Lessig responds, “We have a great network but it just doesn’t work. They talk about it among themselves but these issues are not getting to the right people. How do we take this powerful machine that we have amongst us and get the right tools into the right people’s hands. This is something I think about every day.”

Lessig is aggressively working on this now with Civic Space Labs.

Then the corner turned significantly.

Bob Cox from the National Debate, who’s an Independent but voted for Bush, raised his hand and said, “It seems to me, that in the context of this discussion, its all self referencial. If blogs had blogged for themselves, we would have won. I don’t think that’s the right discussion. Only half the country is represented here.”

Indeed. But there are as many Republican bloggers as there are Democrats according to Chris Nolan.

Back to Cone’s point. Let’s look at some prime local success stories and use the power of the blogosphere to effect things here. Then, we can scale it accordingly as we learn what works and what doesn’t. Ah yes, the start of another long four years.

The BloggerCon Darlings

The BloggerCon Darlings: Steve Gillmor, David Winer, Doc Searls and Robert Scoble. Cover page of the first Blogger Calendar?

Scoble on Information Overload

Microsoft’s loveable Robert Scoble hosts a session on Information Overload, an issue that impacts everyone in the room and beyond.

There’s a rule that Dave Winer has imposed at BloggerCons since Day 1 and that is – no promotion, no promotion, no promotion. He emphasizes that “this is a users conference, not a vendors one." The fact that it has always been held in a university makes it ethically even harder to cross that line.

In a moment of confusion and “being at the wrong place at the wrong time,” PubSub’s CTO Bob Wyman raises his hand and soon, heated words start to fly across the room. (Wyman cracked a joke about the fact that he was a vendor, and 'was not planning to flack his product' -- he didn't intend to start a war, but......)

Let’s just say it was an awkward misunderstanding and the whole issue surrounding what vendors can and cannot say didn’t really get fleshed out until later in the day. For a tense 15 minutes or so however, negative karma filled the room, enough that a few people walked out before the session took off.

The room resumes to normal and a healthy discussion continues. “What is attention metadata?” someone wants to know. Gillmor responds, “The next step we have to take is to help ourselves improve the efficiency and priority of items coming into the information router, whether that’s a server or client system.”

Hmmmmm, okay, let’s move off attention metadata I’m sitting there thinking. This is a users conference after all.

Time famine is something that we all suffer from and with more than 550,000 blogs coming into your view should you choose, the key is not just how to manage all this news, but how to balance and prioritize what we look at and still have lives involving people and not just machines. I was surprised at how few of us read less than twenty feeds per day.

Aggregators have to start getting smarter as information overload takes more and more control of our lives. Its incumbent that content providers provide something really valuable and that they monitor what people are reading over and over again.

One user says, “I want an aggregator that keeps track of everything I’ve read.”

A raise of hands shows that three quarters of the room use blogs as their personal library. WOW. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that so many of us primarily use blogs to record our memories and views. Several use blogs as a depository where they can search for old data and photos later on. So, if that’s a major reason we’re using this tool, how important are categories?

I think categories may be more useful for me than those who read my blog. If I’m trying to search for a post and can’t quite remember the date or context, I can scroll through my politics or travel categories and narrow it down that much faster.

There has clearly been a seachange in the past year, and it’s now a lot easier to find people with odd weird specialties. Tools like Technorati make narrowing in on those in communities doing important things in particular areas a painless process.

Someone says, “You should believe that your blog is your outboard brain. Publishing it publicly is useful for other people but you should really post it for yourself.”

So what does that mean? Perhaps we have our own personal archives that we post to daily and write the valuable stuff that we want the rest of the world to hear less often.

Podcasting: Loveable Radio Recreated

Adam Curry's session starts out describing and simplifying what podcasting is and means.

“Anyone can do podcasting if they have a computer and a microphone,” says one user. Another adds, “Today, it’s more about partying and having fun than making money. These qualities are great, so hang onto them. Every podcast is creating a new form. These would never come out of public broadcasting. It’s important to remember that the hits are going to come from the bottom up, from the outside in. What we’re doing here is fresh and new.”

Adam Curry agrees. It is new and a lot of fun. You can hear the humanity come through in podcasting which doesn’t come across on radio in the same way.

Advice from another podcaster: “Try not to spend too much becoming a broadcaster if you’re a podcaster.”

The hype began all of what, two months ago. I write about the traffic and buzz I saw on October 7, based on discussions in Winer’s and Curry’s circles at the time. It’s starting to take off.

Dave Slusher from Evil Genius Chronicles is here. A podcaster and reader of Adam’s weblog, he raises his hand and talks about Ira Glass’s This American Life, which is an extremely loveable and personal show on public radio.

Steve Gillmor has a lot to say about it, “The information in the blogosphere will be used to find out what is new and interesting is in the podosphere. This is just the beginning. All of the players in this space now are the next generation of the ‘new media.’ We’re seeing the new media being born right now in a serious and big way.”

Gillmor also talks about the beginning. When Doug Kaye of IT Conversations covered the early days of the Gillmor Gang, they saw that downloads outnumbered streaming by two to one. Gillmor says that the characters who already capturing the attention and the voice of people today are well beyond what we can consume and actually have ‘real lives.’

“Now, we’re poised for the next generation, where we can mine attention, and tag and provide metadata on these feeds.”

Doc Searls also has an interesting comment in his November 6 posting.

How will consumers use all these tools? If you consider blogging uncensored letters to the editor, you might consider podcasting the radio call in a show, like Howard Stern on PCP.

Some industry vendors are already supporting podcasting, such as Nick Bradbury who sits in the back of the room.

Even with its popularity on the rise and more and more creators sprouting up around us, are we actually seeing real traffic and is it helping people make money? Michael Butler from the Rock and Roll Geek Show says yes. His site has been shut down because of increased traffic and he says, “more and more people have been coming to my show.” Right on. So this is a new paradigm. A more personal one.

When you think about it, the users in this room are really producers, producers and creators of great content. I think what we really need to do is use this great content and our personalities to develop direct and personal connections with people.

Adam Curry says, “Radio for me has been the soundtrack to my life.” Indeed. A personal soundtrack to his life that he shares with the rest of the world. We need to remember that it's Adam's personality and passion that gives “it” real life.

Personalities at BloggerCon

There were a number of great thinkers at this year's BloggerCon event. A bit of color and personality show through in these fabulous shots. (taken by Doc and I - Doc is by far the better photographer).

BloggerCon Starts

I got up early to attend the third BloggerCon conference this weekend at Stanford Law School, the first BloggerCon on the West Coast. Driven once again by blogger guru David Winer, I walked in to the pre-session to find well over a hundred bloggers, developers, users and vendors singing This Land is Your Land.

Doc Searls sits next to Phil Wolff, Stowe Boyd and Jerry Michalski in the front row and Dan Gillmor sits behind them with the U.S. map open on his Mac showing the familiar sad photo of all those red states.

J.D. Lasica is positioned front center and is in charge of the video camera. Robert Scoble stays in his prime position in front row center until his session on Information Overload later in the day. Buzz and Mary Hodder sit next to me. Steve Gillmor behind me. Great photos thanks to Doc.

They're my industry buds, the people I respect. I read their blogs, am richer because of their viewpoints and they vary from technology to politics to music.

The scene changes as blogs become more mainstream and the third time around, we’re seeing more women and bloggers who have never been a developer. Adam Curry is still the most right brain creative “looking” of the bunch. And probably the funkiest dresser among us. Ya gotta love those pink shades.

It reminded me of Mr. American Airline Pilot’s comment about how bloggers dressed. Serves me right for bringing a "date" to the pre-session blogger dinner Friday night.

Frankly, I don’t think he meant it as a slight so much as his first observation of how casual the world of developers, technologists and bloggers really is, at least relative to his world. He stood in the back hiding the cigar he wanted to light up and was humored by this foreign environment.

My first observation is that the third BloggerCon is a different animal than the first two:
1) More women albeit not by many
2) More numbers in general
3) We’re on the west coast
4) There’s a session on making money
5) It’s not just about making tools better

User-Generated Stuff is Exploding

A major theme in the online sessions at the Dow Jones event is the explosion of user-generated content. But unlike 1997-2000, this growth is not about personal websites, e-commerce and users selling stuff on eBay. We all remember Tripod and Geocities but back then, we didn't have easy-to-use tools.....the result: thousands of sites sat on the web unattended.

Beyond generating content, people want to know when they're mentioned on the web and on blogs, when information changes on a competitor or when there's new features on a favorite product or news on a musician you follow.

People want to update their information easily and quickly, add photos as well as content, access information and have it brought to them when and where they want it.

A combination of tools like Technorati, NewsGator, Six Apart and Feedster, Moreover and others are now available for people to create, search, access and read content in a very personalized way..

It's time to stop thinking of the web as a library of pages and start thinking of the web as user-generated documents which can be accessed in real-time.

With the outgrowth of user-generated content, companies let go of 'traditional PR,' and a mainstream message. Passionate employees, customers and developers are now talking to the outside world. While this scares many PR and marketing pros, we should look at this as an opportunity to extend our reach.

Blog Panel at Dow Jones Consumer Venture Conference

Client NewsGator presented today on a blogging panel at the Dow Jones Consumer Technology Ventures
Conference in Redwood City, CA. It's a private equity conference that draws investors interested in emerging trends and those at the forefront of those trends.

Greg Reinacker, Founder of NewsGator was on a panel with David Sifry of Technorati and Mena Trott of Six Apart.

Moderated by Jason Calacanis of Weblogs, they discussed blogging versus desktop publishing, whether publishing tools and services are the only venture plays, growth of the market, who's the customer, potential partners, media companies and other corporations.

Sifry brought up some pretty serious numbers. We're now at 4.3 million weblogs, a number which has doubled three times Technorati started tracking them. There are 12,000 new weblogs being added every day and over 400,000 new posts per day.

Recap of PopTech Conference

Check out my notes on various speakers and discussions at this year’s PopTech Conference in Camden Maine.

A fan and former working group committee member, I keep coming back for more. Since every blog post doesn’t have PopTech in the title, you can read my recap by going to October 2004 under Archives and scrolling through posts from October 21-24.

Also check out photo albums PopTech 2004 and Maine in the left sidebar. For many of us, photos not words “become” our story. They certainly become our memories.

Connected Politics Led by John Sculley

Former president of Pepsi Cola and Apple Computer John Sculley, is now on the PopTech stage. He is moderating the session on Connected Politics, with Founder and Chairman of MOUSE, Andrew Rasiej, Adrian Wooldridge, Washington’s Correspondent for The Economist and former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi.

Rasiej served on the New York City Board of Education’s task force on technology, spearheading innovative projects that support efforts to bridge the “Digital Divide" and as an advisor to Senators and Congressmen and political candidates. A Brit, Wooldridge covers politics, social policy, and social and political events for the Washington Post.

More well known to most of us Joe Trippi, was heralded on the cover of The New Republic as the man who "reinvented campaigning.” While he’s mostly known for his Howard Dean work, he was also involved with the campaigns of Walter Mondale, Gary Hart and Richard Gephardt.

Through Trippi's innovative use of the internet for small-donor fundraising, Dean for America ended up raising more money than any Democratic presidential campaign in history, all with donations averaging less than $100 each.

Each panelist spoke for roughly 15 minutes before Sculley started throwing out questions while also opening up the floor from those of us in the room and those watching on the net.

I must warn you that this blog post is long. I captured all the details and include a breakdown of the Q&A at the end.

Once the panelists were on stage together, two panelists start out in agreement. Rasiej and Trippi both agree that technology and democracy is broken, i.e., the way the media controls the message, the mess in Florida at the last election, etc. They throw out a question to the audience: “How many people can name their local freeholder or councilman?” Less than 25% of the room raise their hand. Shocking from an audience who is this “plugged in.”

And what about our knowledge about what’s happening in the education sector? Where are we in public schools? 95% of students claim to have computers at home but they’re not allowed to bring them in or connect these computers to schools. I’m thinking - Who did they talk to? 95%? I find this number hard to believe.

We also learn that there are 513,000 elected officials. Pre-2000, ‘the American politician’ was mostly top down. We saw a little email money polling between 2000-2003, but it wasn’t until the Dean campaign that we really learned its power. The voter is now involved.

They talked about the shift from ego-centric politicians to a net-centric one – is it possible and if so, how long will it take? The panelists are cynical. There are 513,000 ego-centric human beings in the U.S. but not a single one of them is net-centric. An ego-centric politician asks us to: write a check, write a check, write a check.

A statement from a net-centric politician might ask for people’s participation in their civic life because it’s more important. We ‘become’ transparent.

But what about money? We have rangers, pioneers, corporations, special interest groups, public financing versus self-financing and people financing. How do we change democracy when money is such an integral part of the campaign process? “Use the Internet to support the entrenched parties or can we make use of Open Source Politics or both?

Adrian says that Connected Politics is not necessarily left wing politics. He thinks that ‘connected politics’ will actually shift it more to the right and he uses Goldwater as an example. Goldwater, he claims, changed the focus of the Republican party to one that believed that Government is the problem and needed to be changed. He thinks we’re going to become more and more conversative in the future. Others don’t necessary agree.

Trippi does agree with Rasiej over ego-centric and net-centric politicians. “Both parties have lost touch with the bottom,” says Trippi. “There’s only one category that Democrats lead against Republicans, and that’s with donations of $1 million or more. And yet, the Dean campaign raised more money than any candidate in history.”

Dean on democracy, “I believe that the only hope for our democracy is the new trust building over the Internet that will fundamentally change a system that isn’t working at the top. It’s going to become a stronger democracy because the bottom will finally have the power to change the current system. The only real reform is when 5 million Americans decide that they’re going to give $100 to some guy they support, which will reek havoc on both parties and what they’re addicted to right now. Technology will shift things dramatically – it enables us to reach communities at the bottom level.”

Trippi continues, “the net is bringing people together. It’s about the American people having faith in strangers again. ‘I don’t know you but let’s talk about how to make our country together.’ The Dean campaign was all about giving the people the power and there’s only one medium out there that allows us to connect with each other and use that power.”

Having faith in strangers, hmmmm. Things are changing and people are afraid.

Trippi adds, “Both traditional parties have always tried to oppress and reform from within. They feared if you went outside the party, there would be no way to raise serious money.” Trippi believes that if both of these parties continue to crush reform, a third force will rise and try to crush and reform it.

Sculley asks the panel, “Democrats prefer their president to be better educated and better able to handle complexities. What’s your sense of whether David Brooks is calling this right? Is there that kind of polarization in what a president should be in each of the parties and not about the issues or is it about both?”

Trippi responds, “It’s really about broadcast media – that’s where the problem is. It’s about attack and move. It makes it hard for them to really explain their positions. Broadcast media is failing the country and both parties play into it.”

Rasiej adds, “Open Source politics are going to take a long, long time. The smirking chimp gets more people visiting every day than leading political magazines get in a year. We’re going to the comedians so they can tell us the truth since we’re not getting it anywhere else. You’re also seeing people go to the Internet to get the truth since they can’t get it anywhere else. You have to look at the pillars, the generation behind us and educate them on merits of real democracy. We screwed it up. We really have to look to the newer generations.”

Sculley - “What is your sense of the different kinds of media young people are turning to for news? Many young people consider the Daily Show as their daily source of news now.”

Adrian says, “Students knew the difference between news and satire and today, they mainly watch satire which is becoming their daily source of news. People object to the crossfire culture. People are forced to take a side on one side or the other. My interest in the Internet is whether it will give more say to people in the middle.”

A question comes from the audience…”None of you mention candidates – what is the value of connectedness if we don’t have great candidates to back?”

Rasiej says, “A politican can’t come to the scene and claim to be a net-centric politican unless he’s elevated by that group himself.”

Trippi adds “One person is going to win. That’s the way the rules work. It is ego and net-centric, but we’re playing under egocentric rules right now. All the barriers are already set up to exclude anyone who can really make a difference.”

Sculley asks, “How important is it for our President to be respected in the rest of the world?”

Adrian jumps in. Remember he’s British. “It’s damaging for America’s self interest. It makes it more difficult on the margins for diplomatic solutions to be reached. There’s a strong case from a conservative perspective of what our goals are today for us to re-brand America. Whether this is driven by mistakes, exaggerations of the current administration….I think anti-Americanism is going to continue to grow. There’s a strong case for re-branding.”

Frankly, this should have been done decades ago.

Another question from a European in the audience who now lives here. “What about Nader? Is this really a democracy? He isn’t even able to speak. There is a fear that we have to vote for the lesser of the two evils. Can we really turn something around in under four years or are we going to continue to have that cerebral problem?”

Trippi says, “If Kerry loses this, there will be a potential uprising. But I caution you about Nader. Nader is a victim of two things. Everyone believes that this is an important election. People would have paid more attention to Nader. If he raised more money, ‘our’ ego-centric system would support him. It’s all about the money. I think that by 2008, there will be a third party. If the Democrats lose, there will be a huge outcry and shift next time around.”

Rasiej – “We don’t have transparency and there’s a huge problem with trust. Somehow we believe that the democracy we have in the states is the best in the world. Why aren’t we willing to have a dialogue with other democracies to see what’s working better and not working elsewhere in the world. We do it in business, why aren’t we doing it in politics?”

Here here. Spot on Rasiej. But if the Democratic Party wants to really shift important issues, such as the nature of foreign policy, it needs to create things that the Republican establishment has. What the left needs in this country is a bloodbath which was created by Goldwater.

Trippi says,”another problem is that the Democratic Party gets into a defensive thing. There’s no new idea on how to save social security from the Democratic Party. It’s a stalling tactic. When you have that on a whole host of issues, it weakens their power. The new Think Tank Rockridge Institute hasn’t really done anything. If Kerry loses this thing, you’re going to see this massive fight. If Kerry wins, the Democratic Party will do the same thing when Clinton was elected. There won’t be a change within the party.”

Adrian pipes in, “Frankly, the best thing that can happen is for both parties to lose.”

Question from the audience – “I wonder socially what will create that kind of discussion. How are we going to move to really listening to each other?”

Rasiej responds first, “Trust. The reality of it is that we’re afraid we’ll get labeled and that label will affect us socially or economically. I tend to agree that we shouldn’t trust that if we go net-centric, we’re all going to go left. People are going to be polarized around individual labels. Fear and the Bush administration has done a good job at this – Fear takes over.”

And why didn’t Kerry take advantage of the Dean machine? “They’re idiots,” said Trippi. “But the main reason is Fear. They were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to control the process. The one thing that I wish somebody said during one of the debates is that the thing that we have to fear is fear. We don’t even realize that in our own lives.”

That was the best thing said on the entire panel discussion.

Trippi continues,” We’re in the infant stages of this. Things are really going to happen through trust building with communities through the Internet and its already happening. It’s not going to come from our leaders, from TV or from radio. It’s the democratization of the Net. There’s a hunger in this country to become citizens again. When is the last time anyone talked about the common good in this country – I’m talking about leaders.”

Another question from the audience to Trippi, “Will more transparency really be a better thing? Will it improve politics?”

Trippi - “What you’re describing is not a problem of transparency. If people wanted to just solve the problem and knew they might be voted out right after they made a particular decision, then there’s an issue. Today, ‘they’ say there will be tax cuts for everyone, and we’ll pay for social security and the war ‘somehow.’ And we let them get away with it. It’s not about transparency. Staying in power is more important than solving a problem. Winning power back is more important than coming up with new ideas.”

The second best thing on the entire panel discussion.

Trippi makes his last comment, “Dean was the first guy who came along in over forty years and say to the American public – ‘look at you, aren’t you amazing. Every other politician stands up there and says, ‘look at me, aren’t I amazing?’

The last question from the audience goes to Rasiej: “What are the features of a community where trust flourishes?”

His response: “Look at what’s happening in the open source world and apply it to other communities.”

What Does More Do To Us?

Saturday morning led us into a thought provoking discussion with Barry Schwartz and Grant McCracken on Less is More or rather Less is More or Less.

Less is More or Less was basically a conversation about the pro’s and con’s of choice. David Polinchock’s blog provides an excellent summary.

“We can't have it all and the quest to have it all is one of the tortures of modern life.”

Schwartz uses brand examples to demonstrate how inundated with choice we are, particularly in the U.S. Take a look at this.

* 285 brands of cookies
* 230 soups
* 75 iced teas
* 175 salad dressings
* 40 toothpastes
* 275 cereals

I’m a consumer and even more importantly, a woman, so I love choice. But is this really necessary? At the average electronics store, there are 30 VCR's & 50 DVD's and if you design your own stereo system, 6.5 million different stereo combinations.

He points out that Americans have more freedom of choice and more money than ever before, although I would argue that this is true across the board.

Yet, people in general are “okay,” they’re “fine,” they’re “hanging in there,” but they are not ecstatic. And, when they see someone who is ecstatic, they question their intent, integrity and authenticity.

Clinical depression is twice as frequent as a generation ago and depression is more prevalent among the younger generation than ever before.

This begs the question - what does too much choice do to us?

Barry gives us an example about a grocery store sampling test with brands of jams. In the first sampling, they offered 24 jams and a coupon for a discount to purchase. In the second sampling, they only sampled 6 jams. With 24 jams, more sampling and more tasting, they saw one tenth as many sales.

Yet with more choices, we often have more regrets and anticipated regrets. There’s also the opportunity costs, i.e., when you pick one over another, you lose the opportunity to try something else.

With so many choices, we have higher expectation levels, which often leads to disappointment and blaming ourselves for potentially making the “wrong choice.”

My generation does that with partners. We have so many choices, even married ones since fidelity doesn’t seem to hold much weight anymore, that if it's not “working out,” it’s easy to just leave the relationship behind.

Another result from more choice, more noise, more hours at work and job insecurity is the increase of stress related diseases – now costing us more than $300 billion a year.

While choices and diversity are good things, what really makes me and most people I know truly happy is having an authentic connection with someone.

Perhaps more often than not, having more choice constrains rather than liberates us. He too notes that the more choices you have, at some point, you reach an escalation of negative effects. And that “it is only with limitations can we really flourish and achieve whatever we want.”

But this begs another question – who defines and creates those limitations? The government, corporate America, parents, religious leaders?

Within our “freedom of speech,” “freedom of ‘owning’ my life” society, no American wants their choices limited. Who we have become won’t stand for it, the media will have to get more creative and corporate America will never ‘give in.’ And yet I find that choice has constrained me and more and more, I try to hide from this reality.

When I first moved back to the states in the early nineties, I found myself constantly trying to search for ‘quiet space’ – quiet space without things, without choices. The first time I went to a supermarket after years of living in Europe and the Third World, I felt sick. Sickened by choice.

I spent far too long in the cereal aisle and I had stopped eating cereal several years prior. I found it distasteful (right or wrong), that I had this much choice. 275+ brands and close to the same number of syrups, dressings, pastes and spreads. The lyrics to Joe Jackson’s "It's All Too Much" gives me chills. (scroll down to see entire song).

What happened to vanilla, chocolate and strawberry? What happened to blonde or brunette? Deep dark brown eyes or soft sexy blue eyes? Yet without constant mixing, experimentation and more choice, we wouldn’t have experienced new music, dance, culture or food. But at some point, it starts to make us feel claustrophobic.

Consider this experiment. On a spreadsheet, try to recount the number of hours and days spent researching data on new car models, computers, printers, sporting equipment, cell phones and calling plans, medical insurance plans, mortgage companies and rates, life insurance options, stereo manufacturers, TVs, VCR or DVD players, travel agents or websites, hotels, airlines, anti-spam programs, nylon, polyester or down, clothing catalogue prices, china, gear for your favorite hobby, wines on a menu (okay, maybe nix that one off the list), old age homes for a relative, plastic or metal, graphite or not, light or heavy, sugar or aspartame, eggs, no eggs, violet, aqua, mustard, tangerine…… ahhhhhhh.

I’m out of breath. Okay, I love having pistachio with chocolate as a choice, and the more colors the better. But seriously, just consider it and do the experiment. After you finish your spreadsheet, take a walk in the mountains or along a river or lake. Then sit down in front of your mountain or body of water and write down what really makes you happy and charged. When you’re done, ask yourself the question again. How much choice do I ‘really’ need?

Joe Jackson's It's All Too Much Some days I can't get started Wondering which shoe to put on first Or should I brush my teeth Before or after I put on my shirt So many big decisions Boiled or scrambled, fried or even raw I'm so damn open-minded Used to think I'm lucky but I'm cursed I hate this supermarket But I have to say it makes me think A hundred mineral waters It's fun to guess which ones are safe to drink Two hundred brands of cookies 87 kinds of chocolate chip They say that choice is freedom I'm so free it drives me to the brink And you know why - it's all too much It's all too much for me to bear What kind of shampoo suits my hair It's all too much to struggle thru Especially without you Won't you please come home Honey please come home I read the morning paper But it all changes by the evening news The world got so much smaller I don't know which piece of it to choose I'd like to fight apartheid Wish that I could fight the guy upstairs I'd solve a dozen cases If only there weren't so many clues What shall we do this evening Send out for some sushi and champagne Stay in and watch TV 50 channels can't all be the same Maybe go to a movie 50 films on 50 tiny screens They say that choice is freedom I'm so free it's driving me insane And you know why - it's all too much It's all too much for me to stand So much supply and no demand There's just too much for me to do Especially without you Won't you please come home Honey please come home I'd like to get to know All the many people I could be If I just had the time I'm sure I could find out which one is me Maybe I need religion Or meditation 'til I disappear They say that choice is freedom I'm so free I'm stuck in therapy And you know why - it's all too much It's all too much for me to take Try to be real, feel like a fake It's all too much to follow thru Especially without you Honey please come home Won't you please come home

Joe Trippi in Maine

With former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi at the Camden Opera House in Maine.

An Explorer's Story

Explorer Ben Saunders chills the PopTech audience with photos of his 1,240 journey from Siberia to Canada earlier this year. We're into the afternoon's sessions on Day Two.

Ben's presentation is an excellent example of just how diverse the speaker selection is this year.

He was the first person in the world to make a complete crossing of the frozen Arctic Ocean, solo and unsupported. The expedition was a traumatic one: out of the four solo attempts, Ben was the only one to reach the North Pole. After experiencing first hand conditions described by NASA and Environment Canada as ‘the worst on record’, Ben has raised international awareness regarding the extent to which climate change is affecting the Arctic. He noticed conditions that were up to 15 degrees warmer than in 2000, and had to negotiate vast, unprecedented areas of thinning ice and open water.

In discussions in the coffee room after his talk, no one I talked to can imagine doing this or ever wanting to do this. Someone from the audience asks the panel about religion. Ben fumbles for an answer - can you imagine not having a number of reflective spiritual moments during that lonely, harsh and bitterly cold 72 day journey, 'religious label' or not? His leave behind: "don't underestimate what 'man' is capable of when we have a strong belief system about our goals and destiny."

Ze Frank Entertains Us

Ze Frank, known mostly for his visually creative, funny and sometimes disturbing graphic design, shows a punctuation substitution chart and the audience laughs hysterically. Then he gives us a visual of himself dancing naked, chest up. Chest up, but naked. I particularly loved his amusing ‘advent of spam’ story -- the drab ruined life of a man who is so lonely and distraught he turns to spam. Ze at his core is an entertainer.

Bob Metcalfe sums him up on the last day – “Ze is a very funny man.” It’s hard to say more after seeing him perform, however, I have to add a few things I can’t imagine Metcalfe saying – He’s ‘way out there,’ I love to watch him dance, and did I mention that he’s hot.

Michael Hawley on Bhutan & Happiness

Michael Hawley has been publicly talking about his work with the MIT Media Lab and the country of Bhutan for awhile. He now has a book out, a 5 by 7 foot 133 pound book. Clearly he’s passionate about what they’re doing over there and more obvious to me, the people.

The photos and stories are beautiful as he flips through the larger than life poster sized pages that rest against a large easel on the stage. Hawley's team at MIT together with Friendly Planet took over 40,000 photographs on four expeditions. His new project claims to be the largest published book in the world.

Stunning images and life-size portraits tell the story of life in this remote paradise of sweeping mountains and awesome ancient architecture. The cost? $10,000 from Amazon, so perhaps not on your Christmas shopping list.

A young teenage girl approached Hawley during one of those trips, asked him about 9/11 and whether he lost any friends. Given that Hawley did, she asked him if he needed a new friend, a new friend in Bhutan. Hawley ended up taking this young girl from the village of Trongsa and Gyelsey Loday, son of the head lama in Phongmey, and brought them back to America.

One woman in the audience beckons the question – “What are the implications of exposing them to our first world society and is this a good thing?” Hawley responds, "We’re always going to be changed through travel – its inevitable." Whether its a good thing or the "right thing?" In my case, it certainly was. My life has been dramatically changed for the good from living in ten countries around the world over the past twenty years.

Maybe not in every case however. It made me think of “The Gods must be crazy.” It also made me think of the Prime Directive from Star Trek’s Next Generation, which says the following:

"As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes the introduction of superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation."

Not exactly the same thing, but it still made me think of it. I’ll never forget a trip to Nepal in the nineties where we were hiking in a fairly remote area. Suddenly a bus pulled up next to a small group of poor Nepalese children sitting alongside the road, a fairly large American woman pushed a $10 bill through the window and shoved it in front of one of the children's faces. I was uphauled. They didn’t even know what to do with it. They looked at the $10 in the same way the African children looked at the sudden arrival of the Coke bottle in The Gods Must Be Crazy.

The most important message for me from his talk was perhaps what I'll refer to as Bhutan’s Prime Directive, which is to be happy. Bhutan’s King has a development policy called Gross National Happiness. One of the jobs of Bhutan’s army is actually to make scotch. (not that I'm suggesting this be a new direction for the U.S. military :-)

But Gross National Happiness? What a concept!!! This is the kind of enlightenment coming from a post medieval age country, and yet in the advanced sprawling U.S. of A, things like 802.11, the iPod and Tivo bring us happiness.

In the West, happiness has usually been considered a utopian issue. Bhutan emphasizes the individual's quest for happiness and inner and outer freedom as the most precious endeavor. Their ideal of governance and polity center on this endeavor. And now they are asking how the dramatic changes propelling us into the 21st century will affect prospects for happiness and how information technology will affect people's happiness.

Sailing in Camden

Mead and Gail of Etymotic sponsored a boat and took a group of us sailing over lunch in the Camden harbor. Sailing in Maine towards the end of October isn't a warm and balmy experience, but it is a beautiful one.

Color explodes around us as we listen to our female skipper tell stories about the area. One of the islands nearby was called Nigger Island (named after a slave) until they were forced t