PR Summit: Who Owns the Message? PR or Social Media

The PR Summit is an all day pow-wow now in its third year. The August 27 event held in San Francisco will take on a wide range of topics from discussing PR for Startups & Early Stage Companies to the dynamics between social media and more traditional PR.

The morning kick-off panel will discuss how to blend traditional media outreach with social media tools with Elliot Tomaeno from The Morris + King Company, Kym McNicholas from PandoDaily.com, Ricky Yean from Crowd Booster, Mike Barash with Knock Twice and Robert Scoble.

I'm on a panel entitled: Battlefield 2.0 - Social Media versus PR (Who Owns the Message?), with Y’Anad Burrell from Glass House Communications, Harry McCracken, Fred Bateman, PRSA's Gerard Francis Corbett and Teresa Rodriguez.

Bad Marketing or Bad Timing will discuss how companies can avoid failure in crisis? Cathy Brooks moderates the panel with Peter Delevett from SJ Mercury News, Venture Beat's Jolie Odell, Jason Johnson from Founders Den and Abraham Hyatt from ReadWriteWeb.

 ROI, Metrics, Measurement, & Engagement panel will be moderated by Alastair Goldfisher from Reuters. Panelists include Murray Newlands, Connie Zheng, Oliver Starr and Jiyan Wei.

Ben Parr and Kim Bardakian take on winning pitches: turning your idea into a national news story.

Keynote addresses include Michael Tchong with Ubercool: “Social Revolution: A good week for crowdsourcing” and Porter Gale on the "3 Degrees of Separation." There will be a few workshops as well scattered into the mix and a fireside chat with Brian Solis and Kara Swisher.

Reid Hoffman on Lessons Learned Over 20 Years

Reid Hoffman is one of my favorite entrepreneurs in the technology industry. 

I was introduced to him and 'his world' when I first moved to California six or so years ago. There was even a time I was talking to LinkedIn about working with them though it now seems like it was another lifetime. Things move so quickly in Silicon Valley.

Some people decide to move west for access to technology and money, and so they can work with the smartest and brightest people in the industry'. For me, since I'm more of an artist tha a geek, a big part of it was the opportunity to work with "the smart and bright" but it was also a lifestyle and attitude decision.

Silicon Valley represented a fresher, more aggressive, dive in or die approach to business and entrepreneurship that was intoxicating after working in Boston where most company execs took a conservative and apprehensive approach more often than not, operating from a place of fear rather than opportunity.

And, given that I was in the technology industry, doing my thing here only seemed natural. People who personified the best in entrepreneurial attitude in the early days for me were people like Jeff Hawkins, Dick Costolo (he was building Feedburner at the time), and Reid Hoffman.

It was 'this mindset' that was prevalent when I moved west that Reid emphasized this past week in a fireside chat in San Francisco with Panda Daily's Sarah Lacy.

One of the things that I really like about Sarah Lacy's interview style is that she likes to be and "is" provocative and isn't afraid of 'owning it.' Men never seem to get slaughtered for this approach, but women often do, and playing in a world where Hollywood and creativity meets tech and business, I think Sarah pulls this off consistently well.

She asked him about the very analytic and organized way he approached his career. Reid took a more methodical and structured path than so many others I was inspired by at the time, something he admitted to when Lacy took us through his career and myriad of start-ups. He said he made a list of all the skills he'd need to run a company and went through acquiring them one-by-one: from Apple's eWorld project, Fujitsu and SocialNet to PayPal and LinkedIn and everything in between.

"Entrepreneurship is about jumping off a cliff," Reid says. "You have to figure out what kind of founder you are: Design, Product or Engineering? Once you know, then acquire the other skills you need to get to the next level." For him, it was product management early on in his career. 

When you start out as an entrepreneur reminds Reid, "you're never going to know the right thing to do all the time." Of his PayPal days, he laughed as he referenced a Peter Thiel quote who had said "I've never learned so much in my life except between 2 and 3 years old." Adds Reid, "If you're not red lining and failing enough, you're not learning enough. Don't beat yourself up and have to succeed all the time."

Advice he shared from his start-ups and things all entrepreneurs should think about:

1. Think about how your product will evolve and plan for it.

2. Think about how and where you'll raise your next round as soon as you've finished raising your first round. If you're not, you'll die.

3. Hire people with deep expertise in areas you don't have but really need. 

4. Hire really fast learners - this is more important with early stage start-ups than someone who has 20 years of experience but may not be a fast learner and can pivot with you when things go south.

5. Hire people who are smart collaborative team players. Ask yourself: can they navigate, learn and adapt quickly and shift gears when you change a strategy overnight. He referred to the fact that PayPal had so many near death experiences.

6. Find something unique and new or be first or second. A Groupon variation could work, but not a third or fourth one.

7. Three things you must have is virality, SEO and differentiators so you can build a set of products that can be built into an ecosystem.

8. You should always have a mindset of being terrified. Be paranoid, especially as a developer. (Note: he subscribes to belief that only the paranoid survive).

9. On choosing your team, go for people who share your vision and can go with you through the bad and the good times.

10. Build a team with people you simply can't 'hire.' (I LOVED THIS ONE and it is so so true).

One of the funniest and truest analogies he brought up was how much creating a team and bringing on an investor for a start-up was like a "shotgun marriage." He says with a grin, "Let's have dinner a couple of times, sign a paper and get married. Then you start running very fast, together and you all have to get along. If the alignment isn't there and you can't get along, it's not going to last."

We moved into company experience and opinions, which included both successes and failures.

In the early days of PayPal, the founders (Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk & Luke Nosek) had different ideas of what PayPal 'should be'. He said, "company direction changed often...we pivoted so many times, that it took us awhile to figure out what PayPal needed to be to sustain itself. Staying independent was highly risky given where we were at."

He says of Friendster, "they failed to get their team to operate well. They also had two minute load times which is essentially like saying F-U, go away."

On Tribe, he says "they got taken over by a community that was mostly Burning Man."

Of gigs he was most surprised that failed? After pondering for a bit, he said, "probably Digg because they had so many users and they had momentum."

Of products that haven't really progressed since they started? Yahoo Mail was his first answer, but then quickly added, "but maybe Marissa will fix this."

Of things which have accelerated faster than he thought they would? Twitter, which he passed up as an investor and is sorry that he had. "I couldn't understand their motivation early on," he said, but then suddently I got it, 'oh, it's a public sphere of attention gestures."

I had to laugh because it was a much geekier way of saying what I was thinking in those days "geeks with egos and ideas who needed to talk using as few words as possible with symbols that didn't make sense." Obviously Twitter has evolved into something so much broader today and rather than a platform designed by geeks for geeks, among other things, it has become a megaphones for brands.

On Zynga, he says noting that he just came from a board meeting and there were obviously things he couldn't talk about, "they have a lot of money in the bank, social gaming is an important category and matters and they have tons of users." On what he advises the team: "Don't worry about the market and what they're doing, just focus on building out your vision. The game is in front of you."

Lacy asked him if he felt that Zynga went public too early. "No, I don't think so," he says, "because it will take so long to build products and the rest of their vision out. They're going through a bit of a storm, but they have the fortitude and the team to pull through it." One of his funnier moments was when Mark Pincus asked him when games would show up on LinkedIn. "His answer? "Never," he said with a laugh. "It's not our business."

Then, there's the Facebook IPO. Reid says, "they decided they could increase their offering and when you do an IPO, you need to create a positive outlook for the future."

On LinkedIn and their IPO, he says, "we decided to go with the New York Stock Exchange, because we felt that it aligned better with our own brand."

Lacy asked him if he felt that Groupon went public too early?

"It's easy to get sidetracked and distracted with an IPO," he says. "They need to focus on building out new products....and when you have to deal with so much marketing and press, it is easy to get defocused, rather than concentrating on the things that you need to do to make your product better. They mishandled some of the things around the IPO and got distracted, but I think the relationships they have with merchants is better than people think." Like his remarks about Zynga, he adds, "the game is still in front of them."

On whether they should have taken the Google deal. "I'm always bullish...I think it's better to go long."

What about now and in the future? He says he wants to work on things that make a difference in the world. As for what that means to him? While Reid isn't Pierre Omidyar or Tony Tsieh in that he hasn't spend a chunk of his life in a business that honors and invests in businesses for social good, making a difference is what inspires him more than making money. Hear hear.

He serves on the boards of Do Something (an organization for young people taking action), The Weekend to be Named Later, Kiva.org, Mozilla and Endeavor Global an international non-profit development organization that finds and supports high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets.

Reid - thanks for sharing your inspiring words of wisdom and lessons learned.

Cory Doctorow on the Century of War Against Your Computer

Cory Doctorow spoke this week at the LONG NOW Foundation. The topic? A provocative one entitled: The coming century of war against your computer. 

The war against computer freedom will just keep escalating, Doctorow contends. The copyright wars, net neutrality, and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) were early samples of what is to come. Victories in those battles were temporary.

Conflict in the decades ahead will feature ever higher stakes, more convoluted issues, and far more powerful technology. The debate is about how civilization decides to conduct itself and in whose interests.

Stewart Brand's fabulous summary of the event below where Doctorow kicked things off by framing the issue this way: “Computers are everywhere.  They are now something we put our whole bodies into---airplanes, cars---and something we put into our bodies---pacemakers, cochlear implants.  They HAVE to be trustworthy.“

Sometimes humans are not so trustworthy, and programs may override you: “I can’t let you do that, Dave.” (Reference to the self-protective insane computer Hal in Kubrick’s film “2001.”  That time the human was more trustworthy than the computer.)  Who decides who can override whom?

The core issues for Doctorow come down to Human Rights versus Property Rights, Lockdown versus Certainty, and Owners versus mere Users.

Apple computers such as the iPhone are locked down---it lets you run only what Apple trusts.  Android phones let you run only what you trust.  Doctorow has changed his mind in favor of a foundational computer device call the “Trusted Platform Module” (TPM) which provides secure crypto, remote attestation, and sealed storage.  He sees it as a crucial “nub of secure certainty” in your machine.

If it’s your machine, you rule it.  It‘s a Human Right: your computer should not be overridable.  And a Property Right: “you own what you buy, even if it what you do with it pisses off the vendor.”  That’s clear when the Owner and the User are the same person.  What about when they’re not?

There are systems where we really want the authorities to rule---airplanes, nuclear reactors, probably self-driving cars (“as a species we are terrible drivers.”)  The firmware in those machines should be inviolable by users and outside attackers.  But the power of Owners over Users can be deeply troubling, such as in matters of surveillance.

There are powers that want full data on what Users are up to---governments, companies, schools, parents.  Behind your company computer is the IT department and the people they report to.  They want to know all about your email and your web activities, and there is reason for that.  But we need to contemplate the “total and terrifying power of Owners over Users.”

Recognizing that we are necessarily transitory Users of many systems, such as everything involving Cloud computing or storage, Doctorow favors keeping your own box with its own processors and storage.  He strongly favors the democratization and wide distribution of expertise.  As a Fellow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (who co-sponsored the talk) he supports public defense of freedom in every sort of digital rights issue.

“The potential for abuse in the computer world is large,” Doctorow concluded.  “It will keep getting larger.”

For more information on future LONG NOW Seminars in San Francisco, visit their site. They bring one amazing speaker after another to speak, so it's worth attending one if you haven't and live in California or don't live closeby but can plan a trip around one of their upcoming events.

Photo credit: Oreillynet.com.

 

Happy Birthday Steve Wozniak: Woz Celebrates His Big 62 in San Francisco

Steve Wozniak, known by most as "Woz," turned 62 years old this week.

While the world at large knows his name as co-founder of Apple, today he sits as Chief Scientist at a company called Fusion-io, whose chief focus is to deliver data faster.

Their pitch of their ioMemory platform is that it accelerates databases, virtualization, cloud computing, big data, and the applications that drive our economy and our daily lives.

The team decided to throw Woz a surprise birthday party this week at Yuerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco.

The marketing folks were seen texting with his wife Janet to get ensure they had the timing right and that everyone was behind a closed door with not one party hat in sight prior to him entering the main building.

As invited guests showed up early to ensure Woz wouldn't find out, they were given noise makers, pink boas, party hats and bags of glitter to throw at him when he walked through the door.

Even after a shower, I'm still finding those damn glitter flecks on my body and my living room floor nearly 24 hours later.

Invitees included old friends, industry illuminaries, geeks, former Apple folks he worked with and a handful of press.

I ran into some people I hadn't seen in years and met new ones I didn't know existed in the "biz."

One of the first people I ran into was Fusion-io's CEO David Flynn (left) who gave kudos to Woz on stage for his dedication to the company and of course to wish him a Happy Big 62. 

Old time industry pals showed up like Tim Bajarin, DEMO's Neal Silverman, Harry McCracken, Therese Poletti, and Janet Rae Dupree and other media who have been covering this industry for years such as Don Clark, Dean Takahashi, Chris Taylor, Mike Isaac, Ina Fried and a host of others.

People seemed to keep the pink boas on for most of the night -- men and women -- and people queued up to have a photo taken with Woz and his wife Janet, pink feathers and all.

The guys decided it might be fun to give Woz "the what and who" he always wanted (?) to pop out of a cake: a geek with zero social skills and less than zero protocol.

It wasn't until he started stripping in front of Woz and the crowd that we began to uhh, wonder, what next?

Woz seemed to go with the flow, which is one of the things we all love about him so much. Sure, he's brilliant and has a lot of charisma, but its his warm engaging smile and authentic way of being with pretty much anyone who approaches him that people fall in love with. In other words, he's about as real as it gets and this "real" comes through when you're around him almost immediately, whether its your first encounter with him or your twentieth.

Below is a shot of Woz with his brother Mark

Below are the two Fusion-io founders. Can you tell which one is the token geek and which one isn't? 

Well renowned and charming TV personality Drew Carey showed up and while he was there because he knew Woz personally, he dealt with the fan love extremely well by posing with people all night long, including yours truly. I couldn't resist. He looks damn good, does he not? (remember, the man was born in the 1950s).

Large Woz posters filled the lobby.

And, after the burgers, stirfry chicken with noodles, potstickers and wine, they served Happy 62nd Birthday Woz cupcakes with the works so to speak.

Even though there was a DJ and drums, and the music brought back a boat load of memories from the 1970s, no one danced because frankly people at technology events never dance regardless of how much they drink. (Note: I did dance with Bill Gates once and was even interviewed by a Washington Post reporter about whether I "thought he could dance" after the fact, but I'm not sure that really counts. I think it was in Vegas although it could have been NYC - it was a LONG time ago).

Instead, we did what geeks do - talk about technology projects and analyze photos AND the cake, both of which were oozing with Steve Wozniak DNA. No, I'm not kidding. Below, Woz lifts up a "birthday present" photo for the crowd so we could all get a visual of his "framed DNA."

They replicated his DNA on a cake, not to be mistaken with the three-tiered one that the 'scary geek' popped out of earlier in the night.

A large vibrant digital screen displayed icons of people wishing Woz a Happy Birthday in whatever way they cared to express it.

Everyone who attended received 'goodie bags' which included a Woz Birthday t-shirt and a game though somehow more of those glittered sprinkles landed in my bad and I imagine I'll find them under my rugs and behind my curtains for months to come, just like the Christmas tree pine needles do after I take the thing down every January.

Happy Birthday Woz. It was a pleasure to be there to help you celebrate, together with pink feathers, glitter, cupcakes and dozens inspiring geeks. Thanks for all the things you do!

Singularity University, Women@TheFrontier & 10 Incredible Women Design the Future

Singularity University held an event in conjunction with Women@TheFrontier at NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley last week.

The program: "Designing the Future 2012", brought together some of today's female game-changers who are designing the future and disrupting the status quo.  

Women@TheFrontier's Susan Fonseca and KristinaMaria T-Gutierrez introduced inspirational women who had one heart warming story after another to share.

NASA's Yvonne Cagle also paid a sentimental tribute to astronaut Sally Ride who passed away on July 23.  

Ray Kurzweil kicked things off and also closed the event in a unique appearance with his daughter Amy Kurzweil who interviewed him in fireside chat style.

Ray's son was also in attendance with a beaming smile throughout the interview as he watched father and sister chat informally in front of a few hundred people on everything from inspiration and life lessons to technology, health and the future.

Below is Women@TheFrontier founder and CEO Susan Fonseca.

A poised and graceful Kay Koplovitz took the stage with confidence, something certainly not new to her as the first woman to head a television network; she founded USANetworks under the banner of Madison Square Garden Sports in the seventies.

She is also known for founding the Sci-Fi Channel which has become a top ten rated cable network and USANetworks, which runs in 60 countries worldwide.

President Clinton also appointed Kay to chair the bipartisan National Women’s Business Council. With a success record that keeps going, she is a great reminder that persistence and tenacity pays off. 

She reminded the audience that 57% of women have masters degrees and 52% of women have doctorate degrees as she threw a quote from Coca Cola CEO onto the screen who said in 2010: "The drivers of the post American world won't be led by China but led by women." 

She added a quote from Hilary Clinton who had encouraged companies and individuals to "unlock potential of women by investing in girls and women" at the Global Impact Economy Forum this year.    

Lakshmi Pratury, who I first met in the early days of TED, then stepped onto the stage to share her magic as a natural storyteller, using humor, authenticity and life examples in her tales on India and inspiration.

Lakshmi is the Founder of INKTalks, the INK Conference and Ixoraa Media, whose mission is to strengthen the ties between United States and India through sponsored corporate, cultural, and media events.

She says of her time spent in America, "the one thing I learned from my time in America is how to tell a story." And let's be honest, all great stories ignite emotion through shared resonance and reflection, which is something Lakshmi does so well.

She says: "what we are is who we focus on feeding and the community we build around us - it's never about us individually." Hear Hear.

Lakshmi talked on the early days of India before the economy took off, which frankly is the only India I know. My first and only visit was in 1989 and rest assured, it is a very different country today.

Says Lakshmi of the perception of India, then and now, which is one of the things that led her to start the INK Conference: "the way people describe India from inside out has always been one dimensional, so I felt we needed to bring the depth and complexity of Indian culture to the world."

The notion of diving in even if you don't have the experience, is not only a great message to all girls and women, but to every and anyone who has an idea. "Every time I say I'm going to do something without really knowing how to do it, it just happens," she says. "You always have to remember that whatever you do or embrace, you don't have to do it alone."

Like me, she is a collector of people, and says that "collecting people IS HER passion." How wonderful is that? Connecting those human dots isn't a bad way to spend your life. Extraordinary things always happen as a result, like the work she is doing in India.

From India to China, Ping Fu shared her life lessons and experiences with us - from China to America, at a time when she didn't have an education or speak English.

Wearing bright pink/red shoes and a necklace made from a 3D printer, she connected with the audience with her own great storytelling.

Ping describes herself as an artist and a scientist whose chosen expression is business. It's in her bio and it's something she says often in her presentations.

She co-founded Geomagic, a leading US software company which pioneers 3D technologies that fundamentally change the way products are designed and manufactured around the world...from repairing vintage cars at Jay Leno's garage to preserving US treasures and digitally recreating the Statue of Liberty.

Another woman who has faced challenges and adversity, she has shown that staying close to your passion and not giving up works if you believe in what you're doing. She is known for her work with geometry processing, and computer graphics as well as her time as a writer for The China Times.

Inspirational on and off the stage, she has spent many years lecturing on such subjects as feminism, cultural criticism, and was news commentary at National Taiwan University and Taipei National University of the Arts, also serving as ambassador at large for Taiwan for a few years. 

While we're on the topic of inspiration and female role models, it doesn't get much better than Amy Purdy who lost both her legs to Neisseria meningitis, a form of bacterial meningitis, at the age of 19.

As a double amputee, competitive snowboarder and spokesperson for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, she talks to people around the globe about her experience and overcoming life obstacles in order to reach your life dreams and goals, regardless of what is thrown your way.

Amy has played a runway model in a music video for Madonna, taken on a role in an independent film and has modeled for a number of photography projects.

She says to the audience, "When you face adversity and rough patches of trying to fit in, ask yourself what defines normalcy, beauty and what defines you? Embracing your uniqueness whatever that is turns your life from ordinary to extraordinary." Hear hear Amy. You were truly an inspiration to watch and meet.

Hannah Chung is the co-founder and force behind Jerry the Bear, a stuffed bear that helps children learn how to manage their diabetes. Inspired to help children, she says she is never looking back and laughs as she shows us a photo of her in a stuffed bear costume.

"I'm happy to wear a bear costume for years to come if it means making an impact on kid's lives," she tells us.

When Jerry’s eyelids close, he is showing that he is low in energy, until he is fed certain foods or given a pretend insulin injection which then boost his glucose levels. The results are shown on a little screen that is implanted into Jerry's belly.

Hannah’s father and grandparents have Type II diabetes and after her grandfather passed away from hypoglycemia, she was inspired to make a difference by helping others manage diabetes as effectively as possible. 

Kudos to the Singularity University and Women@TheFrontier teams for pulling off an incredibly inspirational and moving event with a group of remarkable, dynamic women.

I look forward to future events they plan to host in other cities around the U.S.

Details forthcoming.

Below is the video of Amy and Ray Kurzweil in a fireside chat:

 

 

Photo credit of Laskshmi taken in Munich: Nadine Rupp/Getty Images Europe. Hannah: From the Mccormick.northwestern.edu site. Amy Purdy and Legs: AmberB Photography. All other photos: Renee Blodgett.

Flipboard's 2nd Anniversary: The Team Celebrates in Palo Alto

Flipboard is turning two years old this weekend and celebrated its anniversary this past week in its Palo Alto CA parking lot with friends, family, employees, investors and Silicon Valley influencers.

For those of you who don't know what Flipboard is, you're missing out on a beautiful online experience. Pegged as a 'social magazine', Flipboard is an app for the iPad, iPod and Android which allows you to view content in a way that is stunningly delicious, where photos and simplicity rule.

Part aggregator and part stunning UI for content you already consume, it was listed in the 50 Best Inventions in 2010 by Time Magazine and they describe the experience: "Flipboard ends the chaos by grabbing updates, photos and links from your friends and other interesting people, then reformatting everything in a wonderfully browsable, magazine-like format." Well said and it's spot on.

The other thing that makes Flipboard such a cool app is the people behind it.

The team is headed by former Tellme head Mike McCue, who is a natural "marketing machine," precisely because he "isn't one."

Mike one of the most genuine, down-to-earth understated entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, with a heart and brain that are equally matched.

So, when the team said c'mon down and celebrate with us, how could I refuse?

They have attracted great talent who want to make a difference in the way we consume content today.

In a world where we're constantly barraged by irrelevant stuff, whether its from social media or websites and blogs, Flipboard lets you dictate what you want to see in a gorgeous format.

The casual outside party held a number of surprises, such as the photo booth where you could get your photograph taken in front of magazine cover, like Rolling Stone. You could also feel ten years old again, while you fished for a miniature teddy bear wearing a Flipboard T-shirt from a machine. And, they had a buffet of pork, beef and chicken barbecue as well as a variety of salads, beer, soda and wine. 

Below Flipboard CEO Mike McCue and Klout's COO Emil Michael 

We all know that Scobleizer aka Robert Scoble is a huge fan of the app :-)

Back to the local touch. Sinister Dexter who has an awesome sound, played blues, rock and hopping jazz for several hours and sadly by the time I wanted to kick off my shoes and swing dance to a number, they were starting to pack away their instruments.

Kudos to the Flipboard team for all of their successes to-date. I, for one, am a fan, and no I sadly don't have any stock or work for them.

Photo credits: team show in car and Emil/Mike shot from Eric Alexander of Flipboard, other photos by Renee Blodgett.

TEDxSummit in Qatar's Doha Brings Together Nearly 100 Cultures to Accelerate Change & Meaning

I recently came back from Doha Qatar, where I attended a week-long event exclusively for TEDx organizers.

The first TEDxSummit was hosted by the Doha Film Institute at the Katara Cultural Center aka the Katara Valley of Cultures. The "village" is a bit like a sprawling outdoor convention center that houses an ampitheatre, tents and domes where you can see live concerts and events.

Katara was born out of a long held vision to position the State of Qatar as a cultural lighthouse of art if you will, highlighting the best of theatre, literature, music and visual art in the Middle East. It sits along the water, so you can watch boats sail by and a sunrise in the early evening off in the distance while you take in your event, whether it be performing arts or meetings, or in our case, a mishmash of both. 

Before arriving, I wasn't sure what to expect, from the kinds of content they'd choose to why Qatar and what is Qatar? Refer to my numerous posts on Qatar including a write-up on the Arab Museum of Modern Art, images of the impressive Museum of Islamic Art, a display of work from renowned Chinese artist Cai Guo Qiang and the over-the-top Murakami Ego exhibit.

What is Qatar is probably the most mind blowing takeaway from the event as you'll see from my write-ups. At first, it didn't make sense why we were having an event in such a remote place, a country barely known to so many and yet, after returning from the Summit, the location makes perfect sense.

Given that the Summit attracted TEDsters from nearly a hundred countries around the world, it is in fact a fairly central location, though obviously a longer haul for those of us on the American west coast. And, given the diversity of the attendees, Qatar, which rather than having hundreds of years of history and cultural references, really only started to make its marks a few decades ago.

In other words, its a country in search of an identity as demonstrated by the volume of new immigrants pouring in to tap into Qatar's exploding economic growth...less a land of local Qataris and more a land of transplants from Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon, the list goes on.

And, let's not forget other stats: 75% of those living in Doha and surrounding area are expats/foreign nationals. Doha is preparing for its growing global interest; the city is about as modern as it gets with highrises going up faster than Las Vegas hotels in its prime.

The other reason Qatar makes sense as a location, is that so few of us in the west know "enough" about the Middle East, particularly the complexities of Islam and the culture that goes along with it. Understanding Qatar helps you understand the rest of the region.

Through greater understanding comes compassion, empathy, tolerance, gratitude and a willingness to not just expand your horizons and knowledge base, but reach out and help in whatever way makes sense. This, by the way, is integral to what TED at its core is about. 

And so, we all embarked on soil that is new, yet old, to discuss ways we can help each other, sharing best practices, what works and what doesn't.

Some of the sessions included: How to Write About Your Speakers, Sponsorships, Keeping Your Event Sustainable, Social Media Strategies, Building Salons, Blogging, Making Change with Corporate Events, Capturing Great Photo Content, Planning, Stage & Production Tips, Branding, Livestreaming, Working with Tight Budgets and more.

Clearly it made sense for teams from specific regions to pow-wow with each other. Wwe had breakout sessions in large tents in the middle of the desert broken out by parts of the world, i.e., Eastern Europe, Australia, Central America and in the states, it was broken down even further (northern California, Midwest and so on).  

Below are ketchnotes of one of the TEDxSummit sessions from C. Todd Lombardo, organizer of TEDxSomerville in the greater Boston area.

While meeting by region helps each group share resources, and even space for meetings, its amazing how much you can learn from organizers in parts of the world that have nothing in common with your own. This is separate of course from what you learned from locals who happened to be hanging out or 'working the event' -- in the middle of the desert.

For example, storytelling on stage is very different at a small event in West Africa, yet what is so natural in a village is often missing from a large TEDx stage that may resort to Powerpoint and a speaker's 20 years of experience and knowledge. The opposite applies too of course; there are clearly things from larger events that small towns can use to expand their presence and brand awareness. In other words: borrow from the formal for the informal and take the informal into the formal and make magic happen by blending the best of both together.

The other surprise for me was the whole concept of "you don't know what you don't know and you don't know who you don't know." I didn't even know all the organizers in my own region (greater Bay Area), nor did I know the depth of where TEDx events had spread.

For example, while the events are largely by geography, there are a few that are connected to brands/companies, universities and other institutions. Did you know that there's a TEDxHouses of Parliament? This isn't just fascinating data - this is revolutionary. Consider the kinds of conversations they have already had and will evolve as a result of this kind of "new" organization and collaboration.

Bringing everyone together to share, collaborate and execute on ideas around the world is brilliant. Let's not forget the 'healing' and compassion that comes as a result of greater understanding, which inevitably comes from bringing such a global audience together in one place.

Well done and hats off to Bruno Giussani, Chris Anderson, Lara Stein, and the NY & Doha teams for turning another great idea into a reality.

Some of the Speaker and Presentation Highlights include:

• 'The Human Arabesque' opening night video sourced inspiration from Doha's Museum of Islamic Art. The team researched traditional arabesque patterns in a quest to incorporate regional culture to create a moving, human sculpture representing the transformative power of x.
• Futurist Juan Enriquez has always been a long time favorite of mine. He contends that science and technology are leading us rapidly towards the next "human species." See excelvm.com.
• Vinay Venkatraman, who is a founding partner at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, has developed an alternative vision to creating a more inclusive world through a design concept he refers to as 'Frugal Digital.'
• TED Senior Fellow Cesar Harada demonstrated a bold new design for a sailing craft with a flexible rudder -- on both ends. Called 'Protei,' the robot is designed to sense and clean up oceans.

• I loved Shereen El Fedi's talk on how bad laws fuel and good laws fight HIV. Chart after chart, example after example, she demonstrated her point. Check out their work at HIV Law Commission.
• Amit Sood wowed the crowd with an incredibly impressive demo of the Google Art Project. They have collected and curated the world's greatest art, from museums and beyond, onto the web, making it as easy to access your favorite piece of work or view art you've never heard of or are likely never to see in person. You can even search by sub-category, by typing in for example, red and Picasso for everything that Picasso did in red. There are other filters as well that could keep you glued to this site for hours if not days.
• Rives, who many of us know as a renowned poet, has given awe-inspiring performances on the TED stage before. In Doha, he took us a journey of factoids using his poetic tongue. Bouncing from site to site, we learned about some of the most trivial and not so trivial knowledge on the web, ranging from culture and politics to insects and sex.
• With passion and energy, Indian artist Raghava KK argued why everyone should have a 200-year plan.
• Rare book scholar William Noel fascinated the audience with his research. Using a particle accelerator to read ancient works, he took us on a journey from start to finish. He's a huge believer in open-source and open-data and he and his team are making their work open to others (aka the web of ancient manuscripts).
• Comedian Maz Jobrani intertwined humor with local culture and events. You have depth as a comedian when you can stand on a stage in Qatar and have Americans, Lebanese, Saudi Arabians, Qataris, Scandinavians, Japanese and Aussies all laughing at the same time. He's known for his work on the 'Axis of Evil Comedy Tour,' which traveled around the world, including the Middle East.

• National Food Security Programme chairman Fahad Bin Mohammed Al-Attiya educated me most about where Qatar was a hundred years ago versus where it is today and where's its heading. They're working on a Master Plan, using Qatar, which only has two days of water supply, as a model for sustainable, environmentally friendly agriculture in arid regions.
• Yahay Alabdeli who curates TEDxBaghdad created a lot of teary eyed attendees with his story about how he traveled back to Iraq after 34 years to create an event that pulled not just locals but others who had left Iraq but returned specifically for his event. As you can imagine, it was much more than a reunion. He went through a number of obstacles to make it happen, so it seems perfect that his event theme was: "Making the Impossible Possible."

• One of my old time favorites Hans Rosling returned to the TED stage, bringing humor to sex, religion and data once again. What was even more fascinating was having his global trends in health and economics from every country in the world presented in a place where we had representation by nearly every region in the world. All of his talks exude one of his sweetest talents - his dry humor and quirkiness. Beyond the quirkiness he shows in his professional life, which adds to the power of his talks, let's not forget that the man swallows swords for kicks in his spare time. What's not to adore about Hans? (see a video interview with Hans at the Summit here - he uses legos, rocks and humor that reveals deep insight in typical Hans-style).

Because the event was an International Summit where best practices and learning beyond "talks" were a big part of the agenda, the highlights that will inevitably be glued to people's minds and hearts include the experiencial activities.

Below is a brainstorming session in a tent set up in the desert dunes, roughly an hour and a half south of Doha.

TEDx-ers formed a TEDx in the middle of the sand dunes while others filmed from above:

 

There was dune bashing, also in the south of the country.

 

And, kayacking among mangroves in the north, after which we were guests in the home of a local man, who fed us well and shared some of his photos and life experiences:

 

A visit to the Al-Zubara Fort:

A boat tour along the water:

 The incredibly breathtaking Islam Museum of Art:

Education City has representation from some of the top schools, including Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medical College, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Northwestern University, and others, with a goal to grow Qatar's knowledge base, making it an attractive place to visit and work in the future. 

Below, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar Weill Cornell.

Below is a shot taken at one of the cafes in the Souq Waqif one night (we ended up in the Souq several evenings). Despite the fact that the Souq doesn't serve alcohol, it was a great place to hang out, socialize, shop, drink coffee and eat fabulous local food.

 

Desert Day in the South. Of course, it wouldn't be desert day without an opportunity to catch a ride on a camel:

A casual shot of TEDx organizers in the desert...

Then there was the late afternoon drumming session, which frankly, I can never get 'enough of...'.

A music jam session in one of the main tents - small but intimate and full of great TEDx talent:

18-year old Jordanian pianist Sima Sirriyeh, who composes her own pieces played for us on the main stage.

Opening night, they danced and sang. And then, danced and sang some more.

We took in the best of the local culture and greater Doha through visits to Souq Faqif, the Arab Museum of Modern Art, and the Cai Guo Qiang and Murakami Ego exhibitions. Also check out Doha's Centre for Media Freedom.Late nights were spent in the hotel bars where we stayed: The W and Kempinski Hotels. 

Photo Credits:

• Katara Village, Fort, Boat, Landscape City Shots, Brainstorm session, Hands, Anderson, Dunes, TedxStage Shot1: Javier Junes
• Yahay Alabdeli, Cesar Harada, Inside Museum of Islamic Art: Duncan Davidson
• Group shot in dunes: taken on my camera by a TEDx-er
• North site visit for lunch, middle of desert scene, Hans sword shot from a previous event, casual desert day shot, camel close up, Souq, Maz Jobrani, opening night, drumming circle, jam session in tent after hours, Sima Sirriyeh: Renee Blodgett
• Education City Weill Cornell University shot - website.  

Relevenz: Your Mobile Calendar Marries Relevant & Hyper Local Promos

If the word of the day in the social media world isn't engagement or curation, then its geo-location or relevance.

Finding things that matter to you amidst the clutter (bring on smart and interesting curators please) is like finding a needle in a haystack. And truth be told, while the content needs to be interesting, it also needs to be relevant.

Relevenz is banking on the fact that people are starving for more and more relevance in a world where so much of what comes our way either doesn't spark our interest or has nothing to do with who we are or what we care about.  

Relevenz is a downloadable app (they're starting with iPhone and Android with other mobile support coming later this year) that focuses on relevance within your social calendar. The idea is simple: share relevant plans with people who matter to you (Plancast has demonstrated that sharing events with friends is something people will spend their time doing), and within the parameters of that shared information, you can be informed of local offers, products and services that are most relevant to your world.

Additionally, you can make requests for products and services you want. Who would want to use this? Says co-founder Stephen Oman, "we're targeting people who have extremely busy schedules, such as husband wife teams with children who have a hard time synching up their schedules." 

Obviously small business owners and consultants make logical targets as well. If you're a retailer or a vendor, you could use Relevenz to reach your customers in a very targeted way, get notified what your customers might be looking for and with the knowledge, allow you to make useful decisions to best bid for their business. 

If you're a business, you can create targeted hyper-local offers in a simple self-service mode.

They have integrated with Google apps to give content "context." For example, if you put Austin Texas in your calendar, Relevenz knows your location so it can push relevant information to you within a few miles of your current destination. 

When the merchant wants to throw up a specific offer, that offer will show up under a special "offers" tab to ensure your inbox or calendar doesn't get cluttered with promotions...yet, it's there under a customized tab if you're interested in exploring. Obviously the offer is hyper local adding to the relevancy. The vendor gets charged not the consumer - it's almost like a reverse Groupon.

As far as expansion and business model? They plan to open up their API so developers can build once there's more data. Check out their site for more information as well as links to download their app.

UCLA's Social Media Business Course on April 27-28

There's a fascinating social media "business" course coming up in LA April 27-28, 2012 at UCLA. Entitled the UCLA Social Business Course, the course is designed for executives and professionals who want to go beyond the basics and learn how to apply social media to get concrete business results.

Led by industry veteran Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, she'll explore real-world examples using case studies and explore how social media affects each functional department (PR, marketing, customer service, product development, etc.). The course will also dive into ways to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for each.

Social media monitoring will be part of the curriculum, along with an assessment to benchmark the "as is" state of your social media initiatives and compare them to "could be" via best practices geared toward social media and digital programs with higher monetizations of social media investments.

With this insight, business leaders can assess their next steps; create executable strategies and tactical plans that make sense to traditional organizations (even those not familiar with social media); and make the approval process for initiatives and implementation simpler, more efficient, and effective because they are grounded in business fundamentals that maximize the ROI in social media.

If interested, you can find out more and register here.    

Kavaleer: A FORCE Behind Animation, Short Films, TV Series, Design & Interactive

I first met Andrew Kavanagh during a trip to Dublin a couple of years ago. Introduced to me as someone "interesting to know and meet" because I expressed an interest in arts and culture and write about it regularly, I was pleasantly surprised to discover an expansive world of expertise which unfolded as a result of a one-time "pub" meeting.

He drew an impressive animation sketch for me in some Irish pub way back when and so it comes to pass that Andrew is a huge creative force behind Kavaleer Productions, a well known, savvy and talented studio group, who have created a top notch reputation in the film, design, interactive, animation and television space around the globe.

We had the fortune of spending time together in Austin recently so I could learn about their latest updates. While most known for their creation of award–winning film and television projects, Kavaleer also creates animation, interactive and design services. Aside from creating their own TV shows, where they have been twice nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award and a British Animation Award, their film work has been selected by over 100 international festivals over the past ten years. Impressive, non?  

Interactive has been increasingly playing a major role which is no surprise given what is having on the investment front in Silicon Valley, LA, London and beyond. Kavaleer is also a seasoned provider of interactive content and apps for the e-learning and games sector; no surprise given what's happening in the games industry recently.

In 2009 alone, Interactive services accounted for half of their turnover, so much so that they started developing their own apps in 2011. They have also developed a reputation for their e-learning work, a portfolio of apps that range from Sesame Street workshops (Elmo ABCs) to Disney and the e-entertainment world. 

While these guys may be based in Ireland, their work is known globally. They continue to work closely with HMH on their Destination Math, Fusion Science and Texas Language Arts programs and have been providing San Francisco-based Playfirst Games with content for their hit iPhone /iPad based‘DASH’ games for the past year.

Kavaleer also produced an accessibility game for South Dublin County Council ‘Jobot’s Access All Areas’ which was shortlisted for a Chambers Ireland Excellence in Local Government Award.   

They're not shy about short film production either. Some of their latest results include the following "shorts."

In addition to film "shorts" and the fact that they're known for their work with Sesame Street on the TV side, they're also behind other TV series including: Bed Heads, theAbadas! (the adventures of Hari the Hippo, Seren the Bat and Ela the Fox), Garth & Bev (time-traveling siblings Garth and Bev live in harmony with nature in a village), Lifeboat Luke, which is set in and around the small seaside community of Donaghadoo, and So Mortified. 

They've been around for ten years yet because their creative work is "so behind the scenes," many not be aware of their studio name or their incredible work. While Kavaleer has awards behind their name and a global reputation, Ireland has no shortage of talent in this space.

While many know Ireland to be a country of storytellers, I wonder how many realize its rich history in cinema, television, mobile, games and film. Ireland's animation and digital media sectors are growing both in size and reputation around the globe. For example, Brown Bag Films animated short, Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty, and Cartoon Saloon's animated feature film, The Secret of Kells, both secured Oscar-nominations in 2010. For more on Kavaleer, check out their work and blog. For more on Irish screen producers, take a meander here and for general information on the Irish Film Board, visit their site for more details.