Start-Up Iceland Event Draws Iceland's President & Attracts American Thought Leaders

Hackathons are fairly common in Silicon Valley and while they're starting to pop up in pockets around the world, Iceland may not be a place that immediately comes to mind when you think of start-up geek fests.

Reykavik, Iceland's largest city and home to two thirds of its 320,000 people, recently held a Hackathon in conjunction with Start-Up Iceland, an event committed to helping local entrepreneurs build a thriving start-up ecosystem in the country.

Started by serial entrepreneur, angel investor and Greenqloud CEO Bala Kamallakharan in 2012, Start-Up Iceland has not only grown in size in just one year, but attracted top notch angel investors from the states, as well as European and American entrepreneurs and thought leaders.

TechCrunch's John Biggs presented, as did American venture capitalists Brad Burnham from Union Square Ventures and Foundry Group's Ryan McTyre and Jason Mendelson. To top that list, Iceland’s US Ambassador Luis E. Arreaga and the country's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson thought the event was important enough to show up to address the more than 300 attendees at the beautifully designed conference center HARPA in the city center.

In true start-up conference style, the event kicked off with an UnConference led by Joshua Kaufmann and a Hackathon, held at the University of Reykjavik, where geeks gathered together to cook up some innovative ideas.

The Hackathon was free and open to students, hobbyists, professionals and frankly anyone who likes to hack on cool code and be creative. 

Startup Iceland Hackathon participants were asked to create and present hacks around the central idea that the world is undergoing drastic cultural, climate and economic shifts that impact global business.

As the founding organizers mission suggests: "Strengths lie not within avoiding catastrophe but in planning and mitigating problems before they arise. We can accomplish this by understanding the needs of the business community, anticipating the hurdles and creating proactive solutions." Well said.

Above, locals present their ideas to attendees and a panel of judges and below, Seattle Angel Conference's John Sechrest moderated a session.

Below the Hackathon finalists pose with American thought leaders and entrepreneurs.

Winners and finalists receive acknowledgement on stage.

The winner of the Hackathon was GreenQloud Automated Server Balancer, which is a collection of scripts that manage and change attributes to a GreenQloud hosted server depending on the load.

Simply put, when a user's server is idle, only one system is running. Once the load gets to a specific point, a new system is activated, which allows for consistant performance across the board without wasting so much power. Lower Power usage, lower wasted dosh.

While green energy may be enviromentally friendly, it's not unlimited, so their notion is that you should only use what you need. With their approach, you can efficiently waste the least amount of power with enough performance to do what you need.The team was awarded $1,000.   

Below, Bala does a fireside chat style interview with Ryan and Jason from Foundry Group.

The UnConference presented a host of great ideas, which were far more varied than what you'd find in technology hubs in the United States, largely because many of the needs and problems that locals need to solve on a Nordic Island are unique.

Some of the ideas included angel investing in Icelandic start-ups, the role of big companies in the start-up ecosystem, women's role as investors, entrepreneurs and consumers, cultural barriers between those who have money and those who don't, the value of mentoring, bootstrapping, what can be gained from a Pan-Nordic collaboration, growing Icelandic tourism through better customer service, attracting talent to Iceland and the importance of having a start-up friendly government policy.

Kudos to the Start-Up Iceland team and everyone behind the scenes who made everything happen, from the Hackathon and UnConference, to the more formal Start-Up Event at HARPA, which included a VIP dinner and the President's speech.

I first heard Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson speak at PopTech, an annual event in Maine I've had the pleasure of attending and being involved in over the years. His presentation style is very warm and inviting and once again, he brought that quality to the stage. Below he gives a touching and inspiring talk to attendees.

The video of his talk below.

My takeaway went beyond the fact that Iceland now has a thriving and growing start-up community as demonstrated by Start-Up Iceland and the level of support for the event. Icelanders have resilience and dedication to making things work regardless of what is thrown their way.

Consider what the country went through in 2008 during their financial crisis and how as a nation, they came out the other side as committed and united, able to move forward with a team and “can-do” attitude, something every startup needs to not just survive but thrive.

The fact that Iceland is a small country can be used to their advantage. Icelanders help each other out, share and cross pollinate ideas and don't give up easily. Smaller communities in the U.S., such as Boulder and Portland also implement more of a sharing and caring mentality, something Silicon Valley could use a bit more of. As Foundry Group’s Jason Mendelson commented on a panel, “in Silicon Valley, it’s more like every man out for himself.” 

We have a lot to learn from Icelanders and I felt fortunate to meet some of the early entrepreneurs who are helping to make Iceland grow and thrive as a global player in the entrepreneurial world.

Photo Credits: Distant shot of UnConference & Close Up of Coders at Hackathon from Start-Up Iceland Facebook page, all other photos Renee Blodgett.

All Things D 2013 Wrap: Rockets, Authentification Pills & Speech to The Future of TV

All Things D just held their 11th annual conference in Rancho Palos Verdes California this past week. Imagine a few hundred billionaire and millionaire game changers in a room at an oceanside resort, discussing the latest digital technology trends that impact a host of industries: from government, retail and consumer electronics to mobile advertising, digital TV and everything in between. It makes you wonder: Are we moving to a world that looks something like this?

Some of the trends and reccuring themes are not new this year, but they are more pressing as storage gets cheaper, bandwidth gets faster and it is becoming more common to program your home and tap into a mobile device for nearly everything we do.

How people think about things that were once a Star Trek-like discussion are now becoming reality: energy sources, Google Glass that brings virtual and augmented reality to life in more ways than one, electric versus gas powered cars, a trip to Mars if you have a bank account big enough to afford a ticket, wearable devices and how we will view what we now call TV in the next decade. And, that's just the beginning.

Some of the leading CEOs and thought leaders driving change in this space were on the D stage this year, hosted by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

Mary Meeker who I have tremendous respect for and think of among other things as the "Data Chick", shared her annual Internet trends. No one I know can better convey data faster with as much content as she has in a way that is comprehensable to both geeks and creatives. She somehow manages to get through to both. Here's her latest report.

Two themes which continue to come up again and again are privacy and security despite prolific users of social networks and geo-based services like Foursquare suggesting that they no longer matter.

Where else would fingers be pointed than Facebook? Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg took the stage to address those issues in the first day's morning session. A Wall Street Journal reporter asked her about "trust." 

He raises the issue of snapchatting, which seems like a direct reflection of mistrust. Trust is the cornerstone of our users says Sheryl. She adds, "its critical that we are transparent in understanding how the product works. It used to be complicated and that translated to mistrust so we've made our privacy page and other sections much more visual to make it easier for the user."

She also talked about the new social world where messaging, texting and photos are continuing to explode and 'it's not going to stop.' While she wouldn't speak to any new 'product announcements,' focusing on those three areas was telling.

Unlike Mark, she's fabulous on stage. Even if you don't trust Facebook for whatever legitimate reasons, she's a great face for the company and knows how to turn that mistrust around.

Hunky Elon Musk seemed to get respect from everyone around me - the techies, entrepreneurs, CEOs and women who seemed to reference more than just his "accomplishments." For those who don't know all his accolades, he's the Co-Founder, CEO and Product Architect at Tesla Motors and CEO/CTO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).

Et hem, before we get into his D stage shares, just look at those arms. Combine that with his adventurous spirit, desire to go to Mars, lofty sustainable goals and his South African accent and it's no wonder he has so many woman at "Hello." 

Elon's major message, at least the recurring one was sustainability. Elon is a man who defies odds -- a bit of a quieter Tony Robbins icon, where his sense of solitude and confidence meets the resolve of a politican and the demeanor of a trusted geek. Or, something to that effect.

He says, "car manufacturers said we could never reach certain goals and we keep beating and meeting our goals, defying odds again and again. Our challenge is that we need to convince them that what we're doing is much more than the niche market Tesla is today. To convince them that electric cars are a mainstream product will require a lot more work but its work we need to do."

His tone suggested that it wasn't work he needed to do because it was best for Tesla's bottom line, but because it's the right thing for the planet.

He also announced the expansion of their supercharger network a day earlier than planned. This move is an obvious and required one to move Tesla more into the mainstream limelight. Clearly, the more people who own a Tesla, the broader the network of superchargers Tesla can support and the more superchargers there are, the more compelling it becomes to own one. If there are not enough charging stations, people won't think of purchasing one as their main car and it will remain a secondary car for those with oodles of money or who live in a city where you don't have to travel very far. Below is their expansion plan in the U.S. over the next several months.

On immigration reform, which he wanted to support, he said there was too much Kissinger-ness! He added, "what we encourage is the political system we will deserve." Hear hear. In an interview on CNBC this morning, he said he left Mark Zuckerberg's political action committee, FWD.us, "because the organization became too cynical."

He also addressed carbon and believes in having a carbon tax that will honor the right behavior and penalize the wrong behavior just like we do with alcohol and tobacco. He says, "how we collect the money is irrelevant but the government needs to be paid so we need to reallocate where that money comes in from and set up a system that condemns bad carbon behavior." 

With Steve Jobs legacy still lingering and the fact that he was such an icon on the All Things D stage every year, it's no surprise that the fireside chat with Apple's CEO Tim Cook filled an hour and a half on opening night.

He avoided any commitment over rolling out a TV set, so much so that a Sony guy I talked to after hours was hissing about it. He wasn't the only one since it wasn't just Tim's reluctance to talk about an Apple TV set; he avoided discussing anything related to future product plans.

"While the company has seen modest success with Apple TV," he said (selling more than 13 million since the device debuted), "it has been less a flagship product than a sort of learning experience for the company. It’s been great for customers, but it’s also been good from a learning point of view for Apple.”

Chatter in the corridors throughout the conference was twofold: he did himself a disservice by showing up and not sharing any deep insights, which would have helped to re-ignite faith among thought leaders, partners, press, pundits and the pools of money in the audience and b) while Steve Jobs might have been able to get away with secrecy in that Apple culture and aloof kind of way, people had faith in the silence because they had faith in Steve. 

While Tim claimed that Apple had a "grand vision" for TV and innovation was needed since there hasn't been much progress in the last two decades, he didn't convey much more. When Kara asked him what kind of CEO he was, he didn't answer despite a couple of attempts.

Here's one thing I think would have worked: talk about your operations and "bottom line" strength - while he's not the creative genius or stageman that Steve was (and btw, no one is), focusing on what he can and does ace, can go far. Secondly, people want to see a personality through texture, color and energy even if that energy is a quiet one. 

Even if not theatrical on stage, he could show confidence and humanity (a kick-ass combination for any CEO in my humble opinion), by bringing up two or three personal examples in his own life. If he went with that approach, I am certain that if the wealthy and influential audience at D did't hang onto every word he said, anyone and everyone watching him on the live stream and the video of the interview later most certainly would. My two cents...

He also addressed wearable devices, the growth of their adoption and seeing it as a trend. Here's a video the All Things D team took that shares a few insights on Google Glass and its current value-add including Tim Cook's take. Four or five guys were wearing them at the conference, so I got a chance to test a pair out. The experience was a bit eerie and distracting, making me feel unsettled about my physical environment - in other words, I was more fixated on the potential augmented reality rewards and "digital data" within my surroundings than the person or physical object in front of me. A good thing? Perhaps I'll rephrase that. A healthy thing?

I also might add that it didn't do wonders for my otherwise stylin' dress and unless a different designer gets involved in future versions, I don't see this being a fashion add-on, at least not for women. (from one woman's viewpoint. To add to that, even Tim Cook agreed that people wear glasses because they have to and that they should reflect a person's fashion and style while being unobtrusive).

Another D speaker favorite is Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo, who I've known since his early Feedburner days. He has fabulous energy on stage and this year was no different. Personally I think his Chicago edge and humor play well in this environment. Fortune 500 CEOs who present often, TAKE NOTE: Wit Matters.

Kara who took the lead on topics addressed the news aspect of Twitter and asked whether Dick sees Twitter as a "news organization"? Interesting question since she's right, so many people, myself included, use Twitter as a source for our news, or at least catching up on trends, ideas and events. It's a curation of all three and more from my vantage point and I get to select who I read, when and how.

He says, "I see us partnering with news organizations to distribute news in real time and to help organize and sift through the noise. The beauty of the feed is that you follow who you want but you can also get an aspect of discovery in the mix. The accuracy of the signal that it delivers is remarkable -- we are seeing in the data that people are using the discovery tabs more and more. In the future, I see us surfacing discovery in a simpler way."

Simplicity was a core theme. While it's easy to keep adding more features, the challenge is in removing complexity while keeping the functionality and value-add there, something he says Jack Dorsey aces. Dick says of Jack, "he has remarkable product sensibility - he sees things in a way that no one else does and has a unique way of finding innovative things early on. He's extraordinary."

What is Twitter missing today? Simplicity, he says again. "Because of the 140 word constraint, people have created memes and language that everyone knows in the tweetoverse but newbies have to learn." 

A capital investment guy asks him, "Twitter is having an extraordinary impact on the financial markets - it's a constant flow. When does government say to Twitter that you need to control it?"

Dick says that it will likely flow less from government and more from how the media laws are written in each country. They are so different depending on where you are, referencing the UK's broadcast media world as an example. 

Another D favorite was Pinterest's Ben Silbermann, largely for his honesty and down-to-earth approach on stage.

He talked about how people use Pinterest today - people ask themselves: what activities should I share with my kids? What gift should I get my wife? Pinterest was started to address those needs. He says, "Collecting physical things was always a passion for me and I think what you collect says a lot about who you are.I was interested in taking things offline and putting them online."  

When asked what he didn't know at the beginning and what they have learned along the way, he talked about the overlapping pins, as a way to learn about someone else or a group of people who shares similar interests as you somewhere else in the world.  He says, "people who share things creates an interest graph - it gives you an intuitive and human way to discover things." 

Some call Pinterest the sleeping giant although it isn't really sleeping anymore.  Media in general is becoming more visual and while there have been discovery platforms over the past ten years, the timing didn't match the adoption of integrating a digital lifestyle as a normal and daily routine. Timing isn't everything but it matters more than a lot of entrepreneurs think it does.

I see this with clients all the time! Many start-up founders see, feel and taste the vision long before a consumer is ready to embrace it and often, no amount of advice will stop them from moving full speed ahead even if the market isn't quite ready for it.

Ben also talked about how their team thinks about Pinterest on a mobile device or iPad differently based on user behavior. He says, "we ask the question from your access point, 'are you on the web to browse and put collections together or are you at the supermarket accessing Pinterest through your cell phone to find a recipe with ingredients you need?"

What about Pinterest as a lead generation for brands? Your phone and tablet is always around you so it matters, he says and mobile is huge.....and growing. It begs the following questions: Is Pinterest a mobile interest graph company or will it become one? What business is Pinterest in today and in five years?  

Simplicity was as core to Ben and his team as it is to Dick and his at Twitter. Says Ben, "when the average person uses Pinterest, it has to be easy-to-use and intuitive." They are taking feedback from both the partner and consumer sides. 

The latest evaluation? 2.5 billion evaluation today. To that Ben says, "If Google teaches you anything, it's that small things can get big."

Dr. Regina E. Dugan, Motorola's Mobility SVP of Advanced Technology & Products was on stage with the CEO of Motorola Mobility Dennis Woodside.

Last time she was on the D stage, she was at DARPA and her personality, wit and confidence was a hit with the geeks and entrepreneurs alike. She was equally compelling the second time around.

Regina talked about some of the things they and others are working on around authentication. She showed a tattoo on her wrist, a tattoo that would ultimately authenticate everything. While it's only a prototype now, the thought of wearing one of those for authentification purposes is freakingly eerie. What scares me most is if the government or pieces of it decide that tattoos or a variation of them should become a standard, in the same way there's now a standard way of airport security and opting out is possible, but awkward and time consuming.

There's also an authentification pill and no I'm not kidding. The pill would emit an 18 bit code using your stomach acid as an electrolyte (think battery) and you'll be able to transmit that digital code repeatedly. The latter means that you'd have to take a tablet every day at least initially. If you were forced into one method of authentication, would you choose the pill or tattoo? Frankly, a button on my cell phone that matches my personal thumb print would do just fine.

Other issues the Motorola Mobility team is working on is battery life and broken phones and disruption in the mobile and TV world - who gets paid what and what becomes the new "fair" in the new digital world?  What does mobile innovation look like when it is less feathered and tampered with by carriers? 

Regina was proud to announce that Google Glass wearers walking around with the new Motorola phone slated to come out in August will be made in the U.S., not overseas. (70% will be assembled in Texas).

Lastly, they're kicking off a fun project this summer that will test the limit of "great new ideas." In true makerfair fashion, they are taking a van 10,000 miles over five months to universities and fairs, giving people access to tools so they can create things -- from medicine and mobile to 3D printing.

Less exciting on stage was GE's CEO Jeffrey Immelt, but then again, it's hard to compete with Regina's fabulous energy. 

GE is clearly thinking about and innovating with 3D printing. He says, "the practice of 3D printing has some practical applications in the big industrial world of building jet engines." Like Musk, he and his team are thinking of big ideas, not iPhone and social media applications.

Nuance's CEO and Chairman Paul Ricci talked about the future of speech recognition. As someone who led communications efforts for Dragon -- now owned by Nuance -- I'm a sucker for any advancement in the speech world. He says, "most of what we do is service large enterprise service companies, cars and the consumer electronic industry." 

Clearly, as has always been the challege with speech recognition accuracy and mainstream adoption, it's not just the literal accuracy but the understanding of what you mean: natural language processing and beyond. It continues to get better but still has a long way to go.

That said, recognition is better than it's ever been in history. I'm a user of Siri and find the accuracy remarkably good, so much so that it has become habit, unlike so many other false hopes and useless technology promises.

While B2B and enterprise remain a core part of their business and embedded speech to enable things we use everyday will continue to grow, there's still the consumer application for speech which has helped so many.

I felt a sense of pride and nostalgia when he referred to Dragon products as the only products in his lifetime which has had such a profound impact on people's lives. I too remember so many times when people walked up to me and shared stories about how Dragon's recognition software had literally changed their lives. It was a nice touch and great to hear on the afternoon of the last day.

There's always new & innovative demos shown at D and my favorite was from Max Levchin, formerly of Slide and Paypal. He showed a demo of a new fertility app called GLOW, which is a mobile app that calculates, tracks and monitors data for a woman's pregnancy, such as optimal time of month, and so on. That data can be used to assess the best time for a woman to get pregnant. 

There were also demos of Fanhattan and August. Fanhattan is a cloud-based app that is attempting to aggregate video sources into a single location making it a more seamless user experience.

August uses an iPhone and Bluetooth to automatically lock and unlock the door of a home or office as you come close. When you leave, the same process will lock the door behind you. You can access the app through the web or your mobile device, where there are controls, such as digital key sharing and log data of who entered your home and when they were last there. 

The app is in synch with the theme of needing to speed up and automate authentification since we are doing it more and more often every day. There's clearly a need for a solution that tackles this problem. I'm feeling a bit better about this than the Motorola authentification pill to be honest. How about you?

Below Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher bid the crowd farewell and thanked their team for yet another successful D. Other speakers not mentioned here include Walt Disney's Thomas Staggs, Box's CEO Aaron Levie, John Chambers, Barry Diller, CNN's Jeff Zucker, Anne Sweeney, I. Marlene King, Scooter Braun, Troy Carter, Guy Oseary, Google's Sundar Pichai, Steven Sinofsky from Harvard, Kazuo Hirai and the 49er's CEO Jed York. 

And, a hats off to the crew I came down to D with for making the to and fro such a pleasure: Patti and Larry Magid, Gary Lauder, Shireen Piramoon, Gary Kovacs, Nat Goldhaber, Renee Blodgett. Also, a major kudos to Nat's incredible flying ability. As always, the best conversations of any conference always happen offline. Hallways, elevators, cars, planes, taxis, swimming pools and bars all count! :-)

Photo credits: Top photo of globe from intentblog.com, Sheryl Sandberg shot is a screen grab from the All Things D video from MikeIsaac's article on the All Things D site/blog, Tim Cook Shot from Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com and all others Renee Blodgett.

5 Important Issues From 5 TEDxBerkeley Speakers: Help Us Pave the Way

As a co-curator of a TEDx event, you have a joyful honor of bringing important issues you want to see brought to the table...to the table, or in this case, a TEDx stage. Having been involved in the curation process at TEDxBerkeley for a few years now, there are speakers and writers I've met along the way who have haunted me -- positively and negatively -- the latter often provacative enough that regardless of whether it's a pretty story, you know the story must be told.

Personal issues that keep me awake at night include the ugly embrace of processed food, climate change & the implications for wildlife and the world, the growing divide between the rich and the poor, our sad state of healthcare and education, and women's inequalities. There are countless others, but there's only so much that can absorb my already noisy back channel at any given time.

At TEDxBerkeley this year, we were able to bring some of those conversations to attendees.

I have always wanted Robert Neuwirth to speak at TEDxBerkeley ever since I first heard him speak at PopTech a few years ago. He is best known for his work with squatter communities and poverty. He wrote Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, a book describing his experiences living in squatter communities in Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul and Mumbai.  

He brings us on a journey to West Africa and how locals came up with a creative way to source their own energy when the government couldn't.

Lagos residents use energy conservation. In his time in Lagos, he saw people get their water in large canisters not from fresh water sources or private wells. The Lagos government claims that it provides safe drinking water in sufficient quantities to its people, according to a newspaper he read on his way out of the country and yet, its far from reality. There is no real functioning water system in Lagos and other things are not efficient either. Apparently they waste N1.5 billion by leaving their computers on standby.

The electrical company in Nigeria was originally called NEPA, which the people refer to as "Never expect power always." On a future trip, Robert noted that the name had been changed to PHCN, which locals now refer to as "Problem has changed name." He says, "Lagos is the only city I've been ever been to where people have generator envy. It's a home grown system that isn't licensed. We can argue about their efficiency and so forth, but this is how Lagos gets electricity."

Because of these issues, the Lagos government decided to privatize electricity and raised $156 million from private vendors who want to run the system and still, nothing has changed. This is a great example of where people organically get together to solve a problem when government isn't able to.  

Yet, privatization isn't going to magically transform a system that couldn't provide electricity to its citizens. If they hugely invest in a generation, we're gong to need more money from the consumer and privatization doesn't bring anything better to the consumer. More importantly, they don't have the kind of democracy that talks this out.

Robert also talked about other initiatives there, where a marketplace was literally knocked down by Kai (the Kick Against Indiscipline squad) with no notice and no relocation because it was deemed a rough and dangerous place.  

The mayor has a plan for a kind of urban, mega city. He wants it to be the African Dubai, pointing to Dubai as his model. Apparently, there is a substantial cadre of Nigerians who feel that way.  These decisions are designed to make them look better to the outside world yet of course, it needs to be more rational.

Kim Polese was the opening speaker for this year's theme of Catalyzing Change. In alignment with the theme, she addressed the communications gap between education providers and students. Students don't know what courses to take so they can succeed in the 21st century.

Our challenge is to preserve the excellence and transform old curriculum she says. "We face a new crisis, the skills gap, which is a crisis which is affecting everyone so we need a revolution in the teaching model, a few of which are MOOC (massive online open courses) and passive versus active participants in online open courses (small online classes) in SPOCS, Small Private Online Classes.

The revolution is not about cutting costs, it's about this new transformational learning model that is more engaged and also it allows for mass distribution to more people. Only 50% of undergraduates receive a degree in six years. Moreso than that, 55% of students need remediation.

The typical student attends multiple universities, which equates to lost dollars and time because so much of the credits don't transfer over. Often, a student takes "on average" over a year of credits they wouldn't need to take.

One idea: What if we offered and made those transfer of those credits seamless? Think about what Visa did to revolutionize the credit business, by swiping a card and it just works. If we standardize undergraduate classes so the credits can be applied as seamlessly as a Visa card is used today to pay for products and services.

The STEM gap (science, technology, engineering and math) aka rouhgly 33% of students who just felt that they weren't prepared enough is widening......in the U.S., we lag behind most developed countries.

Five out of every new jobs will be in STEM related jobs in the next decade and yet we're lagging behind countries like Singapore, France and other developing countries. If we just focused on increasing the number of STEM graduates by 10% can produce 75,000 more STEM graduates by the end of the decade, which is close to what Obama's goal is for higher education.

Women are turning away from computing, the percentage at its all time high was 34% and now its down to below 15%. The first programmers were women. During World War II, the army recruited a group of women out of the University of Pennsylvania to calculate bolistic trojectories and they called these computers women. She refers to the work of TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra.

Known for his work in education research, Sugata Mitra won $1 million TED Prize to build his School in the Cloud.

Many who keeps tabs on education will know him for his project called “Hole in the Wall”, an experiment he conducted in 1999, where Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall near an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC and walked away.

Over time, while a hidden camera filmed the area, the video showed children from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process, teaching themselves now only how to use it themselves, but sharing that knowledge with their friends.

His goal is lofty – he invited the world to embrace child-driven learning by setting up something he refers to as Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs). He asked for help designing a learning lab in India, where children can “embark on intellectual adventures.”

Second in the session was Eden Full who is the Founder of Roseicollis Technologies Inc. She studied for two years at Princeton University and is currently taking gap years to work on her start-up full time after being selected for the inaugural class of the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship. Named one of the 30 under 30 in Forbes’ Energy category two years in a row and Ashoka’s Youth Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Eden founded Roseicollis Technologies Inc. to take her solar panel tracking invention called the SunSaluter to developing communities and established markets that need them.

The SunSaluter won the Mashable/UN Foundation Startups for Social Good Challenge and was awarded the runner-up prize at the 2011 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge. While at Princeton, Eden initiated and curated TEDxPrincetonU. Proudly Canadian, she was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. After coxing for the Princeton lightweight women’s team, Eden was selected to be the coxswain for the 2012 Rowing Canada’s senior women’s development team, where they won a gold medal at Holland Beker and the Remenham Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta, beating the German Olympic boat.

She shared her story about her patent-pending solar invention called SunSaluter which she has been using in East Africa. Provided extra electricity every day for one 60W panel to charge, plus not just the benefit of getting extra water but clean to people every day. She tested it out in a polit in Nyakasimbi Tanzania and thereafter with a partner in Kirindi Uganda. The goal is deploy 200+ units to 15,000+ villagers.

Curt L. Tofteland is the founder of the internationally acclaimed Shakespeare Behind Bars (SBB) program. During his 18 years of work with Shakespeare in corrections, he facilitated the SBB/KY program at the Luther Lucket Correctional Complex, producing and directing 14 Shakespeare Productions.

"It is within the silence that we discover the absence of self," he said to TEDxBerkeley audience, as he opened with lines from Shakespeare. "We arrive in this world, naked and alone and we leave this world, naked and alone; we take with us our memories and we leave behind our deeds," he says reading a story that addressed life issues such as dealing with truth and ego.

His work in teaching Shakespeare to prisoners over the years was turned a movie and he also teamed up with filmmaker/director/producer Robby Henson and playwright Elizabeth Orndorf to create Voices Inside/Out – a 10-minute playwriting program at the Northpoint Training Center in Burgin, Kentucky. The program  has generated inmate authored plays that have been professionally produced at Theatrelab, an Off-Off-Broadway theatre in New York City.

Erica Wides from Let's Get Real Show proceeded to take the TEDxBerkeley crowd into the world of "real food," versus processed food, which has become the predominant food Americans eat today.  She says, "artificial has redefined the original. As Americans, we don't even know what real food anymore.

Food has become a hobby or fetish for some of us, it's become another utility like gas or electric of a real booty call." She asserts that we don't really know where real food comes from anymore, and that the "foodie elite" is sending out the wrong message, about things they don't even care about.

The elite want people to care about whether food is seasonable or organic. It's now how mainstream America thinks she says, who throws out examples of how they "do think:" Where is the protein bar ranch? Is the gold fish in my gold fish crackers farmed or caught? Why should I spend time to get real organic meat when I can get an alternative for less than half the price?

How do you know what real food is in the first place? In your grandmother's day, eating organic real food didn't make you elite, keeping your teeth after the age of 50 made you elite.  

The US has the one third of the world's excess weight. Erica says with a sense of wit and humor that brings over 1,000 people to tears laughing: we're becoming the cute potato people from the movie Wally. Even my home town of New York City, who was a thin walking city now has to widen its subway seats for people.

As for what's real? If it grows or flies, it's food. If you cook it at home to bake it into a pie its real food. If that food goes off to a factory to get processed before it gets to you, its not real food; its what I call "Foodiness." People are convinced that this is real food. Foodiness recasts the supermarket products as real food when it's not real food.

If we expect everyone to grow bees, grow their own fruit trees and go to organic markets, they'll just keep eating protein bars and gummy snacks.  

While real food might be really inconvenient it's important to recognize that cancer and heart disease is even more convenient when we don't eat or live well. The only way to make a sea change is for the elite to think like them. In other words, says Erica, "we need to get the scooter riders to stir fry rather than Kentucky fry." 

Lithuanian Start-Up Demos Cool GooGPS Travel App on Tablet PC

I discovered (and used) an interesting new GPS app from a Lithuanian company when I was in Vilnius Lithuania recently.

They call it GooGPS, and the model is data for travel and tourism for visitors. Imagine a Samsung like tablet PC that is loaded with all the best of a city - main attractions, festivals, events, museums, churches, restaurants and hotels, that is light enough to hang around your neck while you meander through a new city.

Then, imagine along side of that data, you have access to all your social apps like Foursquare, Twitter and Instagram, a video camera for easy capturing and a browser to check email....all on a device that is connected 24/7 and limited for E10 a day.

UAB is a global pioneer that is successfully developing a new business model – rent of tablet PCs for travelers. These guys have created a set of programs called “interactive travel guide” that works with a modified Android operational system.

In the system which is within a portable 7-inch tablet, you have 3D navigational maps, connected to their controlled interactive guide with places of interest, routes and audio content.

It is currently available for visitors to Lithuania and Latvia with plans to expand to other regions in the future. 

I tested it out for the day, which included site seeing in Vilnius, the main city and the outskirts. The only glitch I had was limited battery life, so the tablet died half way through my day but when it was up and running, it worked like a charm and was fun to use. Below is a video of me chatting to the product manager.

Reflections on Community & HAPIfork's Kickstarter Campaign

I've done so many launches in my life that I'm not even sure I could count them all and yet a launch in and around crowdfunding is a relatively new experience for most of us.

Some launches alert the world that a product is shipping, that there's an IPO or a new partnership, that there are four new features than the previous version, that there's a new management hire, that the CEO is speaking on a panel, that product Z just won an award, or that an office is opening in Singapore...the list goes on. I've done them all.

Kickstarter, while not a new concept for the early adopters and technologists within my circles, my sisters who live in an East Coast small town have never heard of it nor have my friends in Florida, Minnesota and Canada. In other words, it's still a relatively new way for consumers to order a product, especially one which in many cases hasn't been built yet and there's only a basic prototype to show when the campaign goes live.

We're in day four of the HAPIfork Kickstarter campaign and plenty of press gave HAPIfork some love this week as part of the kick-off, the kind that is, that would cover this kind of announcement. The good news is that as a result of heightened media activity this week which comes on the heals of over 900+ media hits worldwide from its initial unveiling at CES in January, more and more mainstream press are intrigued and want to play with the fork.

From Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, Good Housekeeping, Penthouse and Men's Health, we've had discussions and coverage; it's a no brainer for their audience since its the kind of device mainstream consumers would want to try out just as they did when electric toothbrushes first hit the market and dentists confirmed that they can clean your teeth more comprehensively than a regular brush.  In both cases, there's a "mindful component" to it.

Why wouldn't consumers reading consumer magazines want to learn about a new digital device that can help them eat better, improve their digestion and eat less, thereby consuming less calories. In an eager-to-consume everything and anything country with astonishing obesity rates, the timing of HAPIfork couldn't be better. Even ABC News was intrigued and Jay Leno and The Colbert Report gave the smart fork a call out in mid-January while NBC News Scott Budman covered it the day after Kickstarter went live.

It is precisely the kind of device that will make people think more carefully about their eating habits and suddenly, a "new pattern" of thinking and eating more mindfully kicks in. The goal is to modify "speed" behavior at the onslought and then extend into more mindful habits beyond a plate of food over a meal.

The Benefits of an Early Community:

While there are clearly other ways to get funded, Kickstarter helps to identify the early adopters and fans who really understand the inherent value of a "smart fork". Beyond a fad, people who jump on board early assume faith in a product that embraces a way of thinking that goes something like this:

"A connected fork isn't the only way to get healthy and lose weight, because at the end of the day, it's always my own decision about what I eat, when I eat and how fast I eat. While human input is a big part of leading a healthier lifestyle, I for one, could use a little help. HAPIfork can remind me, prodding me with each bite I take, to eat healthier, slower and be more mindful in the process. Most importantly, I understand this is a starting point and realize that this fork can act as a digital coach to help modify my behavior over time...and alone, is an important first step to the path of mindful eating and living."

The above mantra or statement if you like, isn't an official statement from the company...it's how I personally think about HAPIfork as an enabler of healthy habits, starting with food.

Education will be a big part of this campaign, starting with Kickstarter and well into the coming months ahead. With Kickstarter, we will see the formation of an early community who is willing to take a healthy step into that universe, one that leads to a HAPier and more fulfilling life. 

Building a community isn't new, nor was it new at the birth of social media. Smart marketers have always understood that the customer is king and he/she leads the way, not the CEO. Customers aka your community is critical at the beginning of a product launch and throughout its entire lifestyle.

30 years later and I still flash a smile and feel an emotional bond when I see the Pillsbury Doughboy on TV. Great branding? You could say so, especially since I'm not their target audience. For decades, they achieved sustainable success inside their community (moms and women who bake with their products) and outside their community, people like me who have a warm and fuzzy feeling about their brand even though I'm not a user.

Regardless of what kind of product launch you're doing -- inside a crowdfunding paradigm like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo or out -- it always goes back to the customer and making them happy again and again and again. In recent years, I've seen far too many companies forget how important customer feedback is, for without them, there is no sustainable growth. There is no product. There is no company.

For HAPILABs and HAPIfork, it's the start of learning about a community that embraces the concept of happiness, mindful eating and health early on. It's been a thrilling ride to be driving the marketing and PR efforts since the prototype kick off, but as I watch the Kickstarter numbers rise hour after hour, and excitement runs up and down my spine, I remind myself that this is just the beginning. The exciting days are ahead as we learn from customers using the fork, how it has positively affected their lives.   

Here's the link to the Kickstarter campaign if you are interested in supporting the campaign at whatever level - as a supporter, or simply because you can't wait to get your paws on one of these magical HAPIforks.

HAPIfork Launches Kickstarter Campaign: World's First Connected Fork Now Available for Pre-Order

For the last few months, as anyone in my circle can affirm, nothing has consumed more of my time than a magical little device called HAPIfork, referred to as the vibrating fork and also its claim to fame: the world's first connected fork.

Since our initial unveiling at CES, the world has embraced HAPIfork, eager to try this unique device aimed at helping you slow down how fast you eat.

Today, we're kicking a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the manufacturing and distribution of HAPIfork, so alas, people can finally pre-order the device which aims to transform people's relationship with food.

In January, HAPIfork was the recipient of the CES Innovations Award, Health & Wellness category and soon thereafter, the word quickly spread to over 50 countries globally culminating in hundreds of articles, blog posts, tweets, television and radio appearances as well as a fun shout out from The Colbert Report and Jay Leno.

Keeping in line with Kickstarter rewards at various funding levels, the HAPIfork will be offered as a perk for up to 2,500 people funding $89, and at the $99 level for anyone else who would like to be in the first commercial batch. In addition, the opportunity to be part of the beta testing program, receiving the HAPIfork at the earliest possible availability date, is offered at the $300 level perk. The campaign, which starts today and runs until May 31, 2013, has a fundraising target of $100,000.

HAPIfork was designed by French entrepreneur and inventor Jacques Lépine whose idea was based on research which shows that by eating slower, people can improve the way they feel, improve their digestion and lose weight.  

Unlike other health related tools, the HAPIfork is inconspicuous and appropriate for out-of-home use. The smart fork also collects information for future analysis or monitoring in clinical settings. All data is transmitted to a ‘personalized online dashboard’ when the user connects their HAPIfork to their computer or mobile device making it easy to monitor eating habits and health improvement at home or on the road.

The fork will be released in three colors (blue, green and pink) and will ship to Kickstarter funders first before the general public. The product will initially go on sale in the US and EU in the fourth quarter of this year.

Bravo and a well deserved High Five to the entire HAPILABS team. We're excited to move HAPIfork closer to distribution and grateful to Kickstarter for their support to get this campaign to GO!

SO, c'mon over and support us, order a HAPIfork and start eating more slowly, transforming the way you think about food, eat food and digest food. 

Onward & upward to a Healthier and HAPier place!

Fourth Annual TEDxBerkeley Event To Kick Off April 20

The fourth annual TEDx Berkeley Event (a 501c3) will kick off on Saturday, April 20, 2013 at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall with 13 thought provoking and renowned speakers and three performers, set to tackle this year’s theme: Catalyzing Change.

This decade presents significant and global change that will impact how we use technology, how and where we work, communicate and use utilities and applications across industries, from education, mobile technology, biotech and biofuels to healthcare, government, sustainability and beyond.

Learning and sharing ideas in a way that provokes change and making the world a better place is what TED events are about. Given that Berkeley is an epicenter of innovation, inspiration and talent, it’s the perfect location for speakers and attendees alike to participate in this important global conversation.

 Below is a list of the 2013 TEDxBerkeley speakers and performers:

•  Chris Anderson: Chris is the co-founder and chairman of 3D Robotics, former editor of WIRED Magazine and author of The Long Tail, Free: The Future of a Radical Price and Makers: The New Industrial Revolution.  

• Louann Brizendine, MD: Louann is a practicing neuropsychiatrist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor at UCSF, founder of Women’s Mood & Hormone Clinic, and a media commentator specializing in sex differences and The Male and Female Brain.       

• Mallika Chopra: As a media entrepreneur, Mallika is the founder of Intent.com, The Chopra Well, author of 100 Promises To My Baby and 100 Questions From My Child, and a notable voice in the fields of parenting, meditation and intention.

• Alexei Filippenko: Alex is a UC Berkeley Professor of Astronomy and member of both teams that discovered the accelerating expansion of the Universe, who was honored with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.   

• Eden Full: Eden is the founder of Roseicollis Technologies and spearheaded the solar panel tracking invention called the SunSaluter.  

•  Dan Millman: Dan, an author of 16 books which have been translated into 29 languages, have influenced millions of lives. His most popular book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, was adapted to film in 2006.  

• Robert Neuwirth: Robert is the author of two books on alternative social and economic structures: Stealth of Nations, an up-close investigation of the value of street markets and underground trade and Shadow Cities, which looks at squatter communities as normal urban neighborhoods.  

•  Kim Polese – Kim serves as Chairman of social finance startup ClearStreet, was founding product manager for Java at Sun, co-founder of Marimba, CEO of SpikeSource & was named to President Obama’s Innovation Advisory Board. 

• Ananya Roy: A UC Berkeley professor in City and Regional Planning and distinguished chair of Global Poverty, she authored City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics of Poverty and Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development.   

• Karen Sokal-Gutierrez: Karen is an associate clinical professor at the University of California and Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program and School of Public Health.

• Curt Tofteland: Curt is the founder of Shakespeare Behind Bars, and has produced dozens Shakespeare Productions at correctional facilities around the US.   

• Cecily Sommers: A global trends analyst who helps organizations understand and prepare for the emerging technologies, markets, and ideas shaping our world, Cecily was selected as one of Fast Company’s Fast 50 Reader’s Favorites, founded Push Institute & authored Think Like a Futurist.

• Erica Wides – As national authority on how to find, afford, cook and eat minimally processed natural food, Erica is host and co-creator of Let’s Get Real: The Cooking Show About Finding, Preparing and Eating Food on the Heritage Radio Network.

Performers include Ambiance Lights, a student group dedicated to glove lightshows, which is a style of dance that involves finger and hand manipulation with strobelights, California Golden Overtones, a UC Berkeley all-female completely student-run A Cappella group and Victoria Theodore, keyboardist, musician and background singer who was in Stevie Wonder’s band since 2007.  Yaelisa is an Emmy Award-winning flamenco dancer/choreographer and the artistic director of Caminos Flamencos and The New World Flamenco Festival.  

For the first time, TEDxBerkeley also falls on Cal Day, UC Berkeley’s Annual Open House. This independent TEDx event is operated under license from TED. Visit the TEDxBerkeley speaker page for more information. Mobile users can also download the AppBaker-created iPhone app for the event.  

The Connected Things Discussion at London's WebSummit

Techcrunch's Mike Butcher interviews Alex Hawkinson of Smart Things and Fabrice Boutain of HAPILABS in an interactive chat on the Web Summit stage in London last week.

Below is a video of their conversation, which includes demos.

 

Windows vs Mac: Step Out of Your Tribe & Call It What It Is

Ever do an upgrade?

Of course you have, probably more often than you care to because the market or the media put the pressure on and next thing you know, you're on a new version, a new platform, a new operating system all with new chargers, new software and new rules and behaviors and JUST when you thought you were actually becoming productive. My early write-up on the transition barely touches the iceberg.

In my most recent laptop research, I learned that I would have to pay more to stay on Windows 7 in a new laptop environment than if I went for Windows 8, while tried and 'true' in some early reviewer's eyes, I didn't think I should be forced 'into' a new platform before I was ready and certainly not have to pay more for an older version than a newer one. Where does that apply elsewhere in life? Isn't that sending a reinforcing message to its users? (translation: force is used when love isn't already there to takes its place).

What happened to let the product speak for itself and if the newer version shines which ultimately it should if they did their job right, people will pay more to upgrade?

Bottom line: don't force customers to an environment they don't 'choose', particularly your loyal long-term users. The other culprets who don't get this: legacy-minded companies Verizon and Comcast. Can you imagine Zappos, Dell or Virgin forcing such atrocities on its users?

Forward wind the clock six weeks. I was about to bite the bullet and go for the latest Lenovo, where frankly I've been happy 2x over when I got persuaded to go Mac by a friend who I wouldn't classify as a typical Apple fan boy.  

There are hundreds (okay thousands) who are so blindsighted by "Apple" energy and branding that they don't always see straight. Sound familiar?

Truth be told. I'm a creative. I'm an artist. I may be a visionary in how I look at business and my client's business and portfolio, but at the end of the day, how I think of the world and respect "it" is through an artist's eyes.

And so, getting pressure from major CEO pals who run start-ups, VC firms and beyond, I thought, t'is time (aka isn't it F-G time?) I migrated to a Mac like so many others in the world of which I subscribe (the one where entrepreneurship meets creativity and the arts?) After all Renee, didn't Herbie Hancock and Gregory Hines (both part of the Apple's evangelism program at the time) tell you insistently 15 years ago to get on a F-G mac within a month of knowing you and how you think?

This part is true: I THINK like a Mac, but I WORK like a PC. In other words, my ideas are MAC-like and my productivity and efficiency are PC-like.

While it's never been truer that I AM an artist, I am a creative and I FEEL the world more than I program it, which ultimately makes me more a Mac user than a PC one, what's even truer, is that I'm obsessed with efficiency and "getting shit done."

I'm in multi-tasking mode constantly. It's true that I've balanced a checkbook, taken two calls, and closed a mega deal in my CAR all at the same time. A lot of entrepreneurs have also done the same and done so, more than once.

It's also true that I've been known to carry on a very 'present conversation' with someone over a four hour period and while on the phone, also worked out, painted a hallway, done the dishes and the laundry and watered my garden. As long as I stay away from a screen that demands my brain and attention, frankly I can multi-task in a way that serves, not deters.

As soon as a screen is involved, I am in conflict with "continuous partial attention" (see Linda Stone's work in this area: she really gets it....I wish more people did).

What's scary is when I googled an image for the term, a photo of me came up in the top ten.

And while the above image may tell part of the story, the below image of three friends together for an evening out who are likely not 'truly' present with each other or with anything on their mobile device screens either, depicts a truer story.

In the midst of my PC to Mac conversion, my gut said DO NOT DO THIS! A handful of people who knew me well also said DO NOT DO THIS. Someone I dated for all of 3 months but 'understood' the way I processed the world (mostly because he processed information the same way) said DO NOT DO THIS. Later, I earned that the President of my new company processed information exactly the way I do.

When he made the PC to Mac converation, he spoke of three years of hell after migrating to a Mac world as a heavy Outlook user and how things still aren't efficient and don't work for him.

Alas.

Nearly two weeks later and more hours and lost productivity time than I care to share, I learn that there are ALL sorts of limitations for the Mac Outlook user. Here's my point.

For the Mac Fan Boys:

1. I like my MacBookPro. In other words, I get the value-add. It's clean, the icons are pretty, it's got a helluva brand, the operating system is more secure and it's damn easy to search for anything using a simple button click.

2. Mobile: my iPhone is awesome. While I miss my Blackberry from time-to-time because I churn out SO much email, texts, tweets and more, the more visual and navigational screen on an iPhone makes my life more interesting and efficient because 'search' outweights text over the long haul. Bottom line: it's a mobile world where I don't need to be as efficient pr as fast as I do on my desktop. On my desktop, if I don't become insanely more efficient because of an app or a process (the words insanely efficient are important), then there's no reason to 'go there.'

3. Visual Ecstasy: Your bottom of the screen icons are pretty. As a visual snob, I GET the appeal. It's pretty, you're pretty and your simplicity is addictive.

4. Photography: as a photographer addict, I've migrated over to Lightroom and Photoshop in a Mac environment. I'm told that some of the cluginess that I dealt with in Outlook for the Mac will dissipate in my all Mac environment. In other words, Adobe loves Mac mroe than the PC and just performs better there evne though it supports both. GREAT knowledge to know when you're considering the facts and both sides.

THE QUESTION IS: Who Are You?

When people ask me about Canon versus Nikon or Apple versus Mac or iPhone versus Android or Window or Hulu versus blah blah blah, isn't the real question always: who are you and how do you spend your time? What do you care most about?

Sorry folks but as much as I AM a creative and an artist, and I GET and appreciate Apple in so many ways (see my Steve Jobs obit write-up), HOW I primarily spend my time is getting shit done. I do that primarily through: 

1. Outlook

2. Wordpress

3. Photoshop and Lightroom

4. Groupmail (A Dublin-based company who doesn't yet support the Mac but I love their app, their team and how they think)

5. Filemaker (I have been loyal to them for years and there's a reason for it)

And sure, Microsoft Word and Excel are a close 6 and 7 and there are a zillion apps that follow. SnagIt rocks and I can't say enough great things about it but I can use SnagIt on a PC and a Mac and there's no glitch on either OS, although frankly I prefer their UI on the PC. Why? It's more efficient!

I wish my professional world looked more like this:

And, while it doesn't resemble this sad image as an hourly existence, my career centers around deadlines, stress and fast turnaround more than it does a serene four hour work day on the grass or the beach.

If you're a power user, which I am:

1. Outlook for the Mac restricts the SIZE of your PSTs or whatever the hell they call PSTs in a Mac environment. While I'm on the most powerful MacBookPro you can buy including the top of the line solid state drive, with an extra 750 gig drive to boot,  sub 1 terabyte horsepower. I also went with RAM of 16 versus a sad 4 in my old Lenovo which albeit slow, was able to handle Outlook more efficiency (by a lot) than this mega MacBookPro that I spent a fortune upgrading to.

I also learned that there are other restrictions. Not only does it handle power sized files poorly, but you can't do some of the most basic functions a power user needs to do -- regularly such as file emails in folders and subfolders.  A friend of mine is still suffering from this after his PC to Mac Outlook migration three years later.

I didn't want to do a post like this because frankly someone might lump me into a PC or a Mac camp or none of the above (a naysayer and just bitter about technology), which is so unfair.

I expect that as the years go by (have been in this industry for 25 years now), I would become more efficient not less, happier, not less so, more integrated, not less, more organized, not less so (do you konw that you can't integrate mailboxes from several emails in a Mac environment unless they're all on IMAP and even then, it's clugy). In a PC environment, it works and has done so flawlessly for me for 10+ years. I expect smart curation and smart organization - technology that helps automate me not the other way around.

I'm forced onto Google Docs because the industry says I MUST. I had a client give me a wink and a bravo that I responded to something in Google Docs recently saying "Renee is finally on Google Docs." Really?

I've been on it for years but frankly I don't choose to use it as my default because I don't find that it makes me more efficient. I'm sorry, call me a naysayer, but bottom line, EVERY decision for me comes back to more efficient. If the system, process, app, mobile device or platform doesn't make me more efficient, why go there?

I want less time away from my PC or Mac, not more. I want to be less tethered, yet more connected and more efficient. Moving into 2013, shouldn't we be thinking about THIS GOAL as away to improve our productivity so we ultimately improve our lives and how we spend it? Remember the visual?

Think about it Apple fan boys and Microsoft addicts: if a solution doesn't allow you to spend MORE time with your kids, loved ones and friends, then why sign up? VCs, please, the same question applies given the kinds of things you invest in and don't.

While I love my iPhone and even though I SO get Blackberry addicts, I realized I navigate the web more than I thought and therefore the iPhone wins in the end despite the insane number of texts and tweets I do on a mobile device. That said, the same case CANNOT be made for email.

Email needs to be efficient and while some people may argue and complain and go to great lengths ditching Outlook, it has worked solidly for me for over a decade.

Sure, it crashes occasionally (not as much as Mac has in a 7 day period) and sure, it's not always as fast as I want it to be (it's faster than other email programs I have used or server-based email) over the long haul.

Bottom Line: if you're a power user (I had over 90 gigs of Outlook data that was originally brought over to the Mac - and did NOT work), STAY in a PC environment, one which supports productivity addicts. These are the folks, like me, who find productivity and efficiency their life blood even above and beyond simple search, beautiful icons and tighter security.

I USE FOLDERS. And I use them a lot.

I CARE ABOUT ORGANIZATION and it needs to be micro-managed. I'm sorry but I deal with countless entities, companies, non-profits, organizations, conferences, events and individuals (for the latter, I have about 30 categories. You?)

I need simple drag and drop into folders, from and to and I don't want to think about rules or objections. I need it to work and I need it to work FAST.

I am a data hog. If you have a lot of files: megafiles and subfiles, then don't go to Mac, at least not if you're coming from Outlook. There may be other viable options for you if you start native on a Mac, but bottom line, tell your IT guy HOW you spend your time and how you spend MOST of it.

Sure, I love my time in Photoshop and Lightroom and frankly, will likely find that I'll be better off on the Mac moving forward than in my PC environment. Photography is fun for me and while I do spend a lot of time on it, it doesn't make or break my business. Email does. Welcome to my life!

So, Apple fan boys, as much as you may be in love, call it what and like it is. If someone is a power user and needs to process the kind of VOLUME I do, which I'm told is the level of a head of sales for a large enterprise company and maybe more, Mac ain't your best friend.

If you need efficiency, power, support, integration and beyond, Microsoft and Outlook is still a more viable option. While my friend keeps repeating like a broken record, "it's not the Mac," my argument still sits: I'm ON a MAC, aren't I? One that is almost 10x faster than my six year old Lenovo and yet the environment where I spent 95% of my time (Outlook) performed BETTER and FASTER there than it does on my Mac.

The only difference is that I'm on a Mac and one that is 10x faster at that.

So while you want want to argue that it isn't the hardware and the hardware may be a fast purring leopard-like machine, I don't FEEL or EXPERIENCE that if I spend 95% of my time in Outlook, where Mac performs pretty badly compared to my old thinkpad that is on its way out.

If you're running a business (Sorry, but I do) if you're not ONLY thinking about productivity and efficiency, then can we please stop the conversation now? I don't have the time to talk icons, pretty pictures, search and image as much as they all matter to me.

I need to get shit done and SO, after an entire week LOST (and I mean LOST), my Outlook is now set up an older version of Outlook on the PC side of my Pac via Parallels and once again, it's running and my business is no longer DOWN.

As much as you've pained me over the years, thank you Microsoft. I'm more efficient in your world.

While it's not over yet, and I remain inefficient in the Mac world, there are some tools and people behind the tools who have made sure I didn't jump of a roof in frustration:

• Doug Free and his team at Microsoft for commitment to old fashioned PR as we knew it and looking after me, Microsoft's Technical Support Team which surrpised me 3x in a row (they did an amazing job, including Ryan in Seattle who isn't on staff but deserves a raise)
• John Uppendahl and David Spackman at Parallels. John  convinced me to move to Mac because I could still have my Windows fix if I needed to (I never knew how important this would be: I have learned so much through both of them, including tips on how to be efficient in both worlds)
• Ken Eddings from Apple who helped me decide which MacBook would work best for me also in some insane hour when no one should be working (can you give this man a raise already - he SO deserves it. Really guys - open your eyes to what kind of employee he really is).
• The Twitter team at @MicrosoftHelps who responded the best they could although it was a much more complex situation. Oddly @Outlook didn't respond at all and my main issue was with them. As much as I'm an Outlook addict and 10+ year user, they're obviously NOT on the #socialmedia bandwagon. C'mon guys, get with the program.
• Adobe: they've been great despite my cries and agony. These guys clearly care and their team have gone to great lengths to ensure I'm ultra happy with Photoshop and more importantly, Lightroom, which remains my "bible" for photo editing. They dealt with my stress levels and venting with grace and I remain a fan. 

Image credits: vendor websites, Amazon & Get stuff done image: Wikivillage.

BookEndz, a Great Option for MacBookPro Users On-The-Go

When I migrated to the MacBookPro recently, I was astounded at how few options there were for docking stations. As a mobile warrior and traveler who who is constantly on-the-go, I needed a solution that was similar to my Lenovo set up, where I could come home and quickly throw my laptop into a dock, one which connects to everything it needs to be via ports: external drives, printer, my camera reader, my monitor and more.

I wrote about the Henge docks recently, the guys who make great vertical docks, a simple and inexpensive solution if you don't need a ton of ports and want something quick and easy for sub $75. They have options for all the MacBookPro's as do the BookEndz guys who have horizontal docking station options.

The ports included on the BookEndz docking station is a FireWire 800, Gigabit Ethernet and USB Powered hub which allows for 5 USB 2.0 ports, Audio In, Microphone in, and MiniDisplay Port for an external monitor. Unlike the PC docking stations I've used, you have to use your MagSafe Power supply to power up your MacBook Pro since they don't have a master connector to the docking station itself. An AC/DC power adapter (5 Volts) is included for the USB hub however. 

So far, so good! It was dead easy to set up and I'm a fan at the simplicity and functionality of the unit. Simple-to-use, the additional USB ports are a huge added bonus I didn't expect. If you have a MacBookPro and leave the house with it more than once a week, what are you waiting for?