TEDxBerkeley’s 2012 Theme “Innovation” Kicks Off Third Year at Zellerbach Hall on Feb 4

Tomorrow, Saturday, February 4, 2012, UC Berkeley will gather world leading thinkers, visionaries, creative pundits, philosophers, academics and doers to host the third TEDx Berkeley Event (a 501c3) at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. It's the second year I've been involved in the event and we're thrilled to have a stellar line-up of speakers once again.

The theme this year is: "Innovation." 15 ground-breaking thinkers, leaders and performers will cover a diverse number of global issues and topics, ranging from health and toxicity, politics in a new media world, robotics, machine learning, and mobile computing to the arts through life-changing film & storytelling, micro-finance, the gift-economy and “magic.”  

Below is a list of the 2012 TEDxBerkeley speakers and performers. Visit the TEDxBerkeley speaker page for their detailed biographies and updates.

• Carl Bass: president and chief executive officer of Autodesk, Inc., the leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. 

• Connie Duckworth: founder of ARZU, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, and a retired Partner and Managing Director of Goldman, Sachs, & Co., where she was named the first woman sales and trading partner in the firm’s history during her 20 year career.  

• DeCadence: UC Berkeley’s DeCadence (pronounced dee-KAY-dence, with a capital ‘C’) musical group is best known around the Bay Area for their one-of-a-kind quirkiness and lovable eccentricity. 

• David Ewing Duncan: best-selling author of seven books published in 19 languages; he is a journalist and a television, radio and film producer and correspondent. His most recent best-selling book is Experimental Man: What one man’s body reveals about his future, your health, and our toxic world.  

• Dr. Maria Fadiman: a leader who works with the human/environmental aspect of conservation, who was named one of National Geographic’s Emerging Explorers in 2006. 

• Ken Goldberg: an inventor working at the intersection of art, robotics, and social media. At UC Berkeley, Ken teaches and supervises research in Robotics, Automation, and New Media. 

• Charles Holt: speaker & performer, Charles has entertained sold-out audiences around the world, including The John F. Kennedy Center The Turkish-American Association in Ankara, Turkey, and Rikers Island Correctional Facility. He speaks to groups and organizations in order to empower, encourage, and uplift audiences everywhere.

• Gopi Kallayil: does marketing at Google for Google Plus and previously for the Company’s flagship advertising product, AdWords, in the Americas and Asia Pacific and for AdSense, Google’s publisher‐facing product. 

• Jodi Lomask: founder of Capacitor, she has been commissioned to create original works for NASA, TED, SFO, Computers and Structures, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Salvadorian Olympic Gymnastics Team.

• Nipun Mehta: founder of ServiceSpace, an incubator of projects that works at the intersection of volunteerism, technology and gift-economy.

• Tapan Parikh: Assistant Professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

• Neha Sangwan, MD: an Internal Medicine physician, she is also CEO and founder of Intuitive Intelligence, and acts as a corporate communication strategist to empower healthcare practitioners, organizational leaders and corporate employees in their own self-care.  

• Tiffany Shlain: honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany is a filmmaker, founder of the Webby Awards, and cofounder of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences.

• Lindsey Stirling: a violinist for 19 years with a range that extends from classical to rock and roll. She became known as Hip Hop violinist from the America’s Got Talent contest.

• Robert Strong: the Comedy Magician has been crisscrossing the world since 1985 entertaining audiences large and small, young and old, formal and casual, and everything in between. Twice voted San Francisco’s ‘Best Comedian’, Robert has appeared in more than 40 different countries, in all 50 states, and twice at the White House. 

Additionally, TEDxBerkeley has collaborated with AppBaker to release an exclusive iPhone app for the event. The app features an interactive schedule, speaker profiles, Twitter wall, and much more. TEDxBerkeley has also partnered with Livestream to provide high-quality live video of the event.

The TEDxBerkeley team includes curators Kevin Gong, a translator who has volunteered for the Global Lives Project; Renee Blodgett, founder of Magic Sauce Media, We Blog the World, a global blog network that covers every culture in the world and Magic Sauce Photography, and Jennifer Barr, VP/Operations at Northern CA Wharton Business School Club; Volunteer and Logistics Coordinator Eleanor Yang; Director of Logistics Navi Ganancial, serial volunteer and social media marketing guru; Director of Sponsorships Linda Xu; Technical Director Rocky Mullin, production volunteer for EG and TEDMED, musician & producer and Speaker Logistics Coordinator David Allen.

What is REAL Influence? Will Klout & Other Tools Define & Control You or Will You Define Them?

There's been so much buzz -- on and offline -- about Klout's decision to unveil a new formula which supposedly recalculates scores more accurately, the result of which brought most people's "popularity" scores down a few notches, including my own.

While I think what the guys over at Klout are trying to do is admirable and truth be told, we need really smart analytics and measurement tools to break through the noise, what we have today simply isn't accurate enough or "whole" enough to give us the real truth on who's influential and more importantly, in what circles and why. 

Wouldn't it be more interesting to know who had a Klout score of 80 in food and wine, 80 in social media, 80 in fashion, 80 in politics and so on?

Wouldn't it also be more interesting if tools like this took into consideration a person's offline influence as well as other things they may have done, such as a bestselling book or created a program that made an African village sustain itself?

Part of the issue is that we're early and all of the vendors trying to innovate in this area are trying to figure it out. I spent time talking to Klout's CEO and founder Joe Fernandez in Dublin recently at a web conference and I think he's a great guy who's trying to do the right thing.

I jokingly complained that I've seen 21 year olds who are new to social media, new to Twitter and new to business whose Klout scores have been higher than mine on some days. There are many things they take into account when dishing out a Klout score, including the level of engagement. Crikey, if you're my niece's age and have thousands of Facebook friends who have a ton of time on their hands and can chat away all day with their friends, regardless of how big the circle is, then no doubt, that online "activity" gets engagement brownie points which goes into the Klout analysis.

While engagement could be high in this 'circle', it is its own ecosystem and the real question is: will this voice influence a certain number of people to buy a certain product or take a certain that builds brand awareness?

I have 3 Facebook pages attached to my name, all of which are mine, but I don't get credit in the Kloutsphere for any of them because they can only give you points for one Facebook account - your personal one. When I asked Joe about this, he had a logical explanation. There are far too many people managing a celebrity or brand's Facebook fan page and they shouldn't get credit for that level of influence when the page is about someone else. Fair enough. But what about those whose Facebook pages are legitimately connected to themselves? Small business owners would also fall into that category.

Yet, despite the fact that the numbers aren't accurate or "whole," tons of vendors and brands are jumping into the lions den and testing things out. Frankly, there's nothing wrong with that. With every evolution and revolution, you need to learn by trial and error just like we did with email after fax, blogging after websites and Twitter after AOL IM.

One of my issues is how much credence we (as an industry) give these early tools and how much of a time waste they are for so many I know including me at times before I kick myself back into perspective, nevermind the cultural impact which has quite honestly turned into a popularity contest. I feel as if everyone is competing to be Ken or Barbie and we're back to high school behavior in a way that's not healthy.

As Geoff Livingston points out in a recent post, "people are spending time debating its merits and deficiencies, as well quantifiable metrics in general."

Scores are one way for brand marketers and PR folks to create a list of targeted bloggers and tweeters they can go after, aka a list of the most influential voices who must hear about their product or service. I get it as I've been on the pitching line - both in front of it and in recent years, on the receiving end with We Blog the World.

As Geoff points out, the most influential people in any given sector aren’t necessarily on social media. They hire other people to serve as community managers. As one example, Klout only gives President Barack Obama an Influence Score of 48.

While we do need analytics and tools for measuring, they need to take offline influence into consideration as well as more complex elements and texture that can extracted from people's social graphs.

It's time to bring in the socialogists and anthropologists. One of the best talks I've heard in awhile on a Web-something stage was in October at Web 2.0 Summit by Intel's Genevieve Bell, an Australian born anthropologist and researcher. She is the director of Intel Corporation's Interaction and Experience Research and her talk was begging the question: what if we built data for humans rather than devices? 

Looking at data from an anthropoligical and "human" perspective (bring on more women please), means that we can take the science out of the analytics just long enough to get the pieces that make up the multiple facets of what makes someone who they are into the "measurement" pool.  

Christopher Poole (aka @moot69 on Twitter) also raised the point at the same conference that who we are online may not necessarily be who we are offline. In other words, my social graph online may be very different from who I am in my personal life or frankly want to be...the games we have to play with social media to be part of the conversation -- authentic voice or not -- in order to keep up with metrics and measurement are currently robotic and linear at best. 

Relationships are what really matter and building them take time. I've been working on (yes, while I LOVE it, it's work and takes time), building relationships for over twenty years and yet, my Klout score is lower than someone who's barely been in business or is even old enough to have a relationship with someone longer than a few years of their adult life.

Geoff also refers to this in his post: "without a relationship, it would be extremely hard to get that high scoring influencer to invest energy into your effort. Instead you would have to focus on the magic middle and build your own influence from the ground up."

Gavin Heaten refers to Granovetter’s “strength of weak ties”. While the original post is now a few years old, his point is still relevant. "Social influence and its impact on action is determined by a large number of “weak ties”. So those blogs which are built around an identity which is well-known to its audience (strong ties) is less likely to carry social influence."

Yet, buzz agents, PR people, marketers and large brands are deciding who's influential or beyond that, who can move their brand or sell products inside that brand....all based on these scores.

I went to the Travel Blog Exchange (known among those in the biz as TBEX) in Vancouver for the first time this past year and it was loaded with travel vendors, resorts, hotel chains, restaurants, retailers and more vying for travel blogger's time and ultimately "ink."

While I spend a few hours a day nuturing a travel and culture blog, I also run a business. Many of these bloggers are doing this full time so are spending a lot of time gathering content from the world's most popular destinations and there is an inherent value in that. Yet, many of these 21-25 year old bloggers are enjoying free trips around the world on some brand's dime based on Klout scores and other things like it.

Fair enough, trust me, I wish blogging were around when I backpacked through SE Asia, Australia, Africa and Europe when I was 22. But I think some other form of value will be necessary in the future as online publishing is being rewritten.

I often wonder if I were blogging and tweeting at 22, whether I would have spent less time chatting with a villager next to a fire on some remote mountain had I been loaded down with technology? When I went on those adventures, I wore nothing but a mid-sized rucksack on my back and an old Fujica AX3. My main consideration was making sure my film didn't get roasted in the Southeast Asian sun or when I went through security lines at airports. 

Today when I travel, Foursquare and Twitter (via Hootsuite) are close companions. I often tweet in real time as I'm walking down an escalator and see something interesting and at times, can get so wrapped up in following streams, that sometimes I forget to have a conversation with the guy from Chicago or Tokyo standing next to me.

It's far too easy to get caught up in check-ins, status updates and Klout scores and there's no one who can disagree, that its addictive. It's precisely what makes gamification a godsend to marketers today. And yet with all these distractions, what are we losing and are we forgetting what "real influence" and "real relationships" are in the process?

Refer to my Google+ blog post which talks about data overload and over consumption.

Two decades ago, I would have had a Klout score of zero in the travelsphere and yet by the age of 25, I had been to more places than many travel writers at magazines and newspapers I met along the way. 

I didn't spend any time building relationships with influential 'travel sources,' but with the locals I met en route and here is where I captured magical stories, most of which were written down in an old fashioned diary every night by a fire or from a rickety bed.

I would argue that in a world where the lines between marketers and content creators and publishers are muddy, that large brands should ask for more than a little link love, or a certain number of tweets. How about strategic feedback based on years of valuable insights, experience and perhaps connections to people where both sides benefit in a mutually positive way? Airlines take note. It's not rocket science, it's called listening to your customers, and not just those with high Klout scores. Pay attention to what customers are saying -- on and offline -- and implement changes so they're singing your praises alongside your marketing department.

Another example of a missed opportunity for "influencer collaboration". This past summer, I was flown out to a conference with about six other bloggers and while I was given hashtag and Twitter data as well as the program in advance, I had no knowledge of who was attending the conference so I could connect with people who shared similar interests and passions in advance.

Imagine the power of my writing a story about the work of a few of the attendees as well as their speakers? Ammunition for selling tickets the following year, especially if a new initiative formed as a result. 

At events where everyone is interesting and has a story to share, the magic of what can be discovered doesn't always happen on the stage. 90% of my best stories are gathered off the stage and compelling input is often found from those who are not asked to speak or haven't written a book.

And, did those speakers who authored books know the bloggers and journalists who were attending? They should have known in advance so they could have taken the opportunity to send us a copy of their book to read before their presentation. Insights would have been much deeper and after-the-talk conversations much more powerful. 

Sure, we all could have done our own homework and sure, if we were interested in a particular speaker over another, we could have proactively ordered their book on our own. That's not my point. In a world of over data and over pitching, we need aggregators and curators, and human ones are often the most powerful ones.

Proactively faciliating those connections in a way that is more powerful and intimate increases the likelihood of more stories, especially ones may include more depth and texture.

I think that marketing and PR people have to not only become content creators on multiple channels but also strategic faciliators, aggregators and curators as well. I also think that asking bloggers, tweeters and other online influencers for input into their processes, products, services and ways of communicating will be critical to making this new ecosystem purr.

Events like TBEX for the travel industry, BlogWorldExpo for bloggers and social media addicts, TED for those who thrive on ideas and innovation, DAVOS for those who are participating in the global economy in some way, the national auto show for those who live and breathe cars and thousands of others were created for a reason. Sure, someone thought of an event that would draw people together including sponsors and they could profit from the outcome.

But the real draw for those who attend, even those who fork out the money to host, is the networking and the value of that "in-person" networking over the years. It was one of the reasons people were so upset when COMDEX died, the largest computer show of its kind in the U.S., an event that drew together anyone and everyone who mattered in the industry once a year in the ugly sprawling city of sin Las Vegas.

There, we built a community, and old timers still talk about memories they shared -- in the flesh, not online -- where stories, drinks, food, dancing, ideas, demos and deals were all shared. TED is a great example of a community which has been created both on and offline, and now extended through TEDx events throughout the world.

Relationships are built by investing time in people. In Dublin recently, a group of us were brought to the Irish President's residence and a day earlier, we all listened to the Trinity Orchestra at a college older than the U.S. - there's nothing in an online world, social influence or not, that can take away from those shared memories and moments, some of which may have showed a precious vulnerable side to someone you dare not share online for online is not where that "exchange" belongs.

A deeper dive into what really makes up influence, which includes trust, will improve the current ecosystem we now embrace. It may also change the cast of characters we currently hold in high esteem when honesty, real openness and "human influence" replaces old schoolXYZ networks that keeps things in status quo, maintaining the same dozen voices we hear from again and again, particularly in the online publishing world.

Here, Geoff is spot on when he says "when we focus on influence rankings — tools that quantify a media form’s participants like it was run by journalists — we walk away from the basic truth about these particular types of media. They are relational. They are SOCIAL media.

So, by focusing on lists and not dialoguing and adding value through relevant content and investment, a practitioner is not present. Their effort is bound to have fundamental weaknesses. Building relationships in real life at events, meetings, and through social media are the ways to cultivate better influence.

And oh man, I love his ending: "what is the real reason to quantify big social media influencers? If relationships are your desired outcome, why waste time?" 

We've paid so much attention to data for data sake and the last century has paid an unfair advantage to scientific knowledge and stats, that we need to rewrite the rules of what holds value in and out of the boardroom. Francis Cholle in his book The Intuitive Compass takes 223 pages to tell you why our intuition (the quadrant which is defined by relationships and creativity) is critical to succeeding in the next century. (book review coming on We Blog the World before the end of the year in the Books category).

A fundamental question to think about is this: will Klout & other measurement tools like it define and control you or will you define and control them? If we are to innovate, shouldn't we step up and tell the data what really matters? In a Genevieve Bell world, we'd start with humanity and relationships and build up and out from there.

Photo credits in order of appearance: Garagehangover, Obama shot unknown, John Ryan & Associates, a Facebook stream, Selfleadership.com.

Ireland Prime Minister Enda Kenny on Technology at #Founders

Ireland's Prime Minister Enda Kenny came to the Founders event in Dublin this past week to talk about the importance of technology and Ireland's commitment to its expansion and innovation as a major contribution to a growing economy both at home and abroad.

GigaOm Event on Nov 10: How will Connectedness Transform Everything?

Blazing fast networks, cheap silicon, always-on devices and a torrent of data will fundamentally change everything — how we consume media, how we work, how and what we buy, and even who we are. They plan to expore how connectedness will transform every industry and facet of life. Here's a snapshot of the opportunities they plan to examine. Meet the GigaOM editors and analysts who are unveiling the trends driving consumer connectedness. The speaker lineup includes: David Card, Director of Research, GigaOM Pro Katie Fehrenbacher, Senior Writer, GigaOM Mathew Ingram, Senior Writer, GigaOM Ryan Kim, Staff Writer, GigaOM Ryan Lawler, Staff Writer, GigaOM Om Malik, Founder, GigaOM Jody Ranck, Analyst, GigaOM Pro Paul Sweeting, Analyst, GigaOM Pro Michael Wolf, Vice President of Research, GigaOM Pro All registered attendees to GigaOM RoadMap will receive a complimentary copy of a GigaOM Pro in-depth report on the future of connectivity. You can register here.

Speaker Lineup   Robert Bowman CEO of MLB.com   Ed Leonard CTO of DreamWorks Animation   Brian Chesky Co-Founder and CEO, Airbnb   Jack Dorsey Co-Founder and CEO, Square   Venky Harinarayan SVP Walmart Global eCommerce and Head, @WalmartLabs   Matt Mullenweg Founder, WordPress/Automattic   Drew Houston CEO and Founder of Dropbox   Jim Lanzone President, CBS Interactive   Frank Moss Professor of the Practice of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab   Tom Conrad CTO and EVP of Product, Pandora   Michael Moritz Venture Capitalist, Sequoia Capital   Richard Nash VP, Content & Community, Small Demons   Matt MacInnis Founder and CEO, Inkling   Mark Rolston Chief Creative Officer, frog

 

Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson Talks About Lessons Learned

Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson took the PopTech stage in Camden Maine on October 20, 2011, where he discussed economic crises and how to handle them in a way that will ensure long term sustainability of a country. He used his own as an obvious example, which has not only faced economic issues but natural disasters over the past year.

President Grimsson spoke about how he made a choice for his country that would either make farmers, local businesses and individuals take responsibility for their own decisions which would impact the financial health of the country OR turn to/blame the force of the market.

He chose to choose the democratic will of the people, which he says, hasn’t brought on the dark results that everyone predicted it would.

In his day, he reminded the audience, demonstrations and protests were the only way to get noticed and bring about change. “Now,” he says, “we are now seeing people power in its purest form, enhanced by social media. The fundamental essence remains to challenge political institutions as never before.”

"The power of the people through social media has dramatically accelerated change, making the traditional political decision making process has almost become a side show," he says.

Below are some lessons he has learned from Iceland: 

• Significance of China. "The arrival of China is here now, not ten or twenty years from now," he says. "The leadership of China was the one of the most successful discussions following the collapse of the banking system than any other country we talked to, including Germany, Italy, U.S., France and others."

• The banks have become high tech companies, threatening the growth of the creative sectors of our economies. He says, "What we learned in Iceland, when the banks collapsed, is that the pool of talent from the banks were suddenly all available. "Even if the banks are successful, it’s bad news for a country that wants to be a player in the creative economy," he adds.
• The importance of clean energy. The lesson learned is that if you have built up a clean energy economy, it  will help you fight against financial crisis in the future. It provides people with a lot of energy at a low cost.

 

Robert Nieuwirth: The Free Market Vs the Flea Market

Who’s afraid of the informal economy? journalist and author Robert Neuwirth asks the PopTech audience. He is known for his book Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World. His latest -- Stealth of Nations -- is focused on street traders around the world.

He notes that 80% of the working people are not in the informal economy, but something he refers to as System D, aka the Self Reliant economy, which he pirated from the African speaking Africa and Caribbean world.

Half the people in the world are working in System D, which means that the total value of System D around the globe is around $10 trillion. “If this was combined in a single political entity, let’s call it Bizzare-istan,” he says with a smile, “it would be the second largest economy in the world.”

It means that squatter communities are growing faster in legal areas, that the informal economy is exploding and that The Rational is becoming Irrational.

The informal economy has always been around globally, as he throws out example after example with photos in China, Taiwan, and Africa, where individuals are selling pirated designer sunglasses, cologne, DVDs, and mobile phones. He also notes that this kind of quasi-criminology happens in the formal economy every year as well, talking about Siemens who paid $1.9 billion a day, where it was done above board and legit.

In the Free Market Versus the Flea Market, the lazy man's money is worth more. "We have to consider fairness," says Robert. "What we think are facts, are actually set in stone by those who are in the most power and have the most interests."

If so many workers around the world are street trading and they're alive, employed, thriving and growing, we have to work together, and with and within it. Says Robert, "we shouldn't criminalize street trading - we should embrace it in someway so that we can bring people doing it out of poverty and into a better way of life." Hear hear Robert.

Also refer to a video on the TED blog to hear more of his insights.

 

Web 2.0 Summit Kick Off: Twitter, Yahoo, eBay, Bluefin, Intel, Salesforce & More

Web 2.0 Summit kicked off yesterday afternoon at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly are master curators of some of the best minds and storytellers in the technology industry, throwing CEOs of major corporations on stage to answer business and technology questions together with start-up entrepreneurs, an Intel anthropologist and a fireside chat between John Heilemann and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.

I spent my time listening, shooting and tweeting more than I did taking comprehensive notes, but here's a few memorable quotes and takeaways from day one.

Sean Parker, former co-founder of Napster, currently Spotify:

Sean talked about how much easier it is for the independent artist to get noticed using social networks today. "You can take an artist to a number one position fairly quickly. I don't understand why any artist would sign on with a record label today. As an artist, if you're functional and don't have a drug problem, there's no reason why you can't pull yourself up as an artist today.

Artists today can be in charge of their own destiny. Maybe later on, you can sign on later on for distribution on Amazon and foreign markets, but not at the beginning."

He says that Spotify is an attempt to pick up where he left off with Napster. Parker also shared his thoughts on social networks and Facebook in particular, denying a down and dirty fight with Zuckerberg on Hollywood streets. On Facebook, he says that there's a balancing act between active and passive sharing and felt that they don't give users enough control. He adds, "the concept that the best content rises to the top can only work if there's a conscious definitive and targeted decision about where your content actually ends up."

John Donahoe, President & CEO of eBay:

He was very deliberate about where he sees eBay playing today and in the future. He says, "eCommerce and retail are crumbling fast. People can now access information with red laser and do product exploration in the store in real time. We're taking all of our properties that we have and putting them onto one open platform so developers can build.

Consumers can now take a photo of a UPC code using Red Laser and see what retailers have it locally. With one click, you can buy it locally or click on Paypal and order online. This is huge innovation in retail which hasn't really moved at all in twenty years."

He continues to reference an example of how bad the search experience is today for fashion. "You don't go to Google and type in blue shirt and expect to get what you want. You can search by images today and get "like-products" based on an image you choose and like. Image-based search will be huge in the future, especially in fashion."

On how they compare to Amazon, he nailed it from a marketing perspective. Rather than get caught with his pants down on what they're not doing right, he fixated on the fact that they don't compete with retailers so they're knocking at their doors. He says "we are not a retailer and never will be. Technology is having a huge impact on their businesses and they need help. We can provide that." He also noted how huge mobile has been for them and will continue to be, throwing out a staggering stat: eBay sold 2,600 cars from their mobile app alone in a day.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com:

"You can make a direct connection between user interest and engagement," he says emphasizing how important social media is and will continue to be for their enterprise customers.

"Companies must embrace social media or embrace the consequences," noting that when issues arrise today in corporate America, crisis is accelerated in a very public way via social media that didn't happen ten years ago, even five years ago. 

Marc told Toyota that they should have a car called the Toyota friend. "I want to have a conversation with my car...car manufacturers should have social cars."

Aside from his emphasis on getting their enterprise customers to not just adopt but take social media seriously, he added that he has bought into gamification as a layer on top of businesses and the increasing importance of it in the future.

Ross Levinsohn, EVP of Americas for Yahoo:

Ross said he joined Yahoo for a very specific reason: to build great products, build them across platforms including their own, personalize those products for their users and then program those products. He also noted that its the best job he's ever had, "not easy, but the best."

"A black box won't solve everything...there has to be a human touch.

The signals we give off today are about getting the right content to consumers and the right opportunities to advertisers."

When asked What is Yahoo today, a question that arises at nearly every industry conference, Ross says: "Yahoo is a really rich premium, personalized experience for consumers on every platform." Yawn.

Marketing spin and well rehearsed but it doesn't really paint a rich textured picture of who the company is nor does it show me a sustainable business model. Onward.

Chris Poole, Founder 4chan and Canvas:

Poole focused on identity and the mediocrity which has been created around it. "Who am I on stage is very different than who I am in my personal life," he says.

"There are so many lenses of who I am but Google and Facebook wouldn't want you to believe that. In their world, we're merely a mirror.

Facebook treats our identities like mass market fast food. I have more choices in the eye of a toothbrush in a shopping aisle than I do in how to express myself online."

Strong statement and at that juncture, I wasn't sure where he was going, but his message got stronger. On Google+, he is spot on. "They've just copied the same broken model that Facebook created. You can incorporate identity without giving up quality, but give users a choice."

He goes on, "Facebook and Google (with Google+) are dictating how we share our identity and our creativity...consolidating our identity and making us so much more simple than we really are. We deserve choices and options. Over time, our identity is being eroded by large industry players and how can we, as an industry think this is a good thing?" Hear hear Chris. Hear hear.

In other words, Silicon Valley and other early adopters, stand up to the giants and demand higher standards than what we're being dished today, including how we're told to behave, what we can share, how we can share and with who, down to the exact number of "friends" we're allowed to have.

Deb Roy, Co-Founder and CEO of Bluefin Labs:

Deb showed some very cool visualizations of what they're doing with TV data in case you ever wanted to know what TV programs diet coke lovers watch. He says, "it is now possible to link impressions to expressions."

They take content from TV stations and build out a semantic content graph of TV and the social web, resulting in what they claim is the most comprehensive semantic index of TV online today. They call it the TV Genome.

Through their live feeds, they're adding 200K shows, 2 million ads and 40 million links per month. Show by show, they can create graphs that show the number of impressions versus expressions, focusing on expressions whereas Nielsen focuses on impressions.

He says, "this view is a different window of consumer behavior and their mindset than what has been offered in the past, which will be a game changer. We're building out a data audience sentiment, so that within the TV Genome, brands can decide where they want to put their time and effort."

Geneieve Bell, Director of Interaction and Experience, Research Group, Intel

I loved what Geneieve brought to the table, which was a look at data from a human perspective. As an anthropologist, she asked the question, "who is data? rather than what is data?"

There are things in our life which will only want to be physical data, she notes, not digital data, such as buddha statues for example.

"Data loves good relationships," she says. "And, data needs to be social, have a country (a home) and be feral. By this, she means that data will run wild, beyond the current boundaries of what we now imagine. We will have to think about privacy and security differently within this framework.

She also adds that "data has responsibilities. We have to tell a story in the right spirit, in the right place, and to the right people. Data also likes to look good. People are always actively choosing how we represent ourselves online," noting that in the online dating world, 100% of Americans are known to have lied on their online profile. In the UK, it is about 60%.

She ended her presentation with a provocative question which I felt could have been a talk on its own (a nice, long healthy interactive talk): "What if we designed for data the way we design for people rather than for devices?" All I could think of was "crikey, we need more women in this business."

Brad Rencher, SVP & GM, Omniture Business Unit, Adobe

Brad centered his whole talk on the differences between digital marketing strategy and digital business strategy and what it means to have both.

"The first rule is around social," he says. "You can't buy friends, even if you give away lots of free things to get them.

You have to ask yourself when you make decisions on social networks to buy influence - 'what does that mean for my business long term?' Business success is driving engagement to your properties if you're a company with many," using MTV as an example.

His best line of the night: "the data has to burst out of its silos and make sense for your business and show an impact. How does it affect your business strategy?" He adds that mobile must be key to your strategy moving forward, suggesting that when you think out your mobile strategy, think about how customers can motivate your brand from a mobile device.

Spoken like a true marketing guy he ends with this: "Today's CMO who owns digital and understands customer intimacy will be tomorrow's CEO." I happen to agree with him.

Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter:

On how Twitter is going to play and compete in the marketplace, Dick says, "we're going to offer simplicity rather than complexity. Apple thinks about the world the same way.

It's much harder to edit out than add features. Bradley Horowitz talks about Google+ and the fact that they're going to compete on and add more features. Our focus is to compete on simplicity."

There's a lot of signals coming from each tweet. Battelle asks if this is Twitter's biggest challenge? Noted as a significant challenge, Dick says of the 250 million tweets a day they see, that they need to surface that data into something that is more meaningful: global things that matter to everyone and regional things that matter to your own community.

Dick says, "when you only offer authoritative tweets on a topic, then you lose the roar of the crowd. When we do that, we are sucking the life out of an event (i.e., world cup) by taking the volume out. We have to show the volume while also separating the signal from the noise. The key is showing this visually in a way that is compelling and simple. And, we're working on that."

One of their core values says Dick is to "respect and defend the user's voice. Not using your real name means that in countries where you can't speak as freely as you do here, you can speak up." He noted a situation in Tunisia as an example. "We're the free speech wing of free speech," he adds referencing the words of their lawyer.

He ends with more of their core values, getting away from money questions and other controversial topics: "Rather than focusing on a $8 billion market cap, we think about whether we're doing things that we can be proud of as a company and whether we're building things that are sustainable and scalable."

Augmented Reality to Transform How We View & Interact on our PCs & Mobile Devices

The apps overlay is what can be seen in plain sight with digital photos, videos, text or more.

Point your smartphone at an Italian restaurant, and diner reviews of its lasagna pop up on-screen. OR, you aim your tablet computer's camera down a residential street, and over images of the houses you see which ones are for sale — along with the asking price, number of baths and square footage. 

The technology is called augmented reality, or AR, and businesses are racing to incorporate it in as many consumer applications as they can. It's essentially the same technology TV sportscasts use to digitally paint a first-down line on a football field, adapted and updated for camera-equipped smartphones and tablet computers.

AR has been around for years, but only recently gained traction for consumers with the widespread adoption of smartphones equipped with electronic compasses and GPS chips to determine where the devices are and what they're pointing at.

The mingling of the real and virtual worlds works by overlaying what can be seen in plain sight with digital photos, videos or text. It's similar to the sophisticated bar codes known as QRs, but has a much wider range of applications. A QR requires a digitally created image, or code, printed on an advertisement or product.

With AR technology, a consumer simply points at an object to get information. Aim at a house, for example, and find out whether the resident is selling anything on eBay Classifieds. Or point to an apartment building, and find out whether there are vacancies and what the landlord wants for rent. For a more extensive read on this, check out the LA Times from which a summary/overview of this was retrieved.

An interesting and informative video below:

 

Georgia Tech's Rosa Arriaga on the Power of Human Censors

Georgia Tech Psychologist Rosa Arriaga talked to the Idea Festival audience about the importance of human censors to not only empower patients to take better control of their diseases, particularly chronic diseases, but improve self reliance overall.

She notes that individuals of chronic conditions aren’t even aware of their own symptoms. She brought up SocialMirror, which is a targeted social network for individuals with autism. Tools like this for patients can help them stay motivated about making their regime a priority, including medicine.

Through his network, the app can provide feedback about what an autism patient should do or not do in a particular social situation, such as what to wear at a particular event, what to say, what to bring to a meeting or party, certain behaviors and so on. The social network combined with caregiver and doctor feedback can be a powerful tool to help patients become so much more self reliant than they could ever have imagined in the past.

This would obviously work for so many other conditions and chronic diseases. She ends with this parting thought and prediction. "The future of health and well-being will be done with social computing and social/human censors.”

Idea Festival 2011 Recap: From Robots, Art & Science to Education, Politics & Innovation

The Idea Festival is an annual event held in Louisville Kentucky every year. Founded by Kris Kimel, his vision is centered around the following belief: "with innovative ideas we create the future."

I've been meaning to attend for several years and finally made my way down to Louisville this past September for three days of inspiration and electric energy across the areas of science, politics, healthcare, education, music, design, technology and the arts.

Unfortunately, most of us have little opportunity to get out of our daily worlds (and ways of thinking) to learn about, discuss and explore how to integrate diverse and important ideas and innovations. This event's goal is provide a unique “space” for the convergence of great ideas from leading thinkers across the nation and around the globe.

To give you an idea of the diversity of the event, imagine listening to an Army combat veteran Wes Moore talk about his book about a child with the same name who was convicted for felony murder (my write-up here) and Cesar Millan, the world's foremost canine rehabilitation specialist and then Aubrey de Grey about rejuvenation science and aging (my write-up here), and Maz Jobrani on what its like to be a Middle-Eastern American in the 21st century, all within one morning?

Or, hear physicist and author Leonard Mlodinow explore the extraordinary extent to which randomness, chance and probability influence and shape our work and everyday lives? And while your head is full, energetic violinist Lindsey Stirling comes out on stage and has you tapping your foot and smiling ear-to-ear. (write-up on Linsey here).

Inside the Ideas Festival, there were other sub-events, such as the Kentucky Film Educator's Summit, which was free and open to the public. Kentucky's foremost film educators gathered for a unique symposium to discuss the rise of cinema studies and filmmaking programs across academe, their evolutionary future and what it takes for such programs to take root, thrive and remain relevant.

And if science and film isn't your thing, how about a discussion about the science of kissing, which Sheril Kirshenbaum led on the first morning. Azure Antoinette read poetry, Ruby Lerner from Creative Capital brought in a number of genre-bending artists to show off their latest on stage (and at evening receptions), and leading geo-strategist and author Parag Khanna led a discussion around the rapidly shifting political, energy and economic landscape. (my write-up of his talk here).

 
Installation artist Shih Chieh Huang wowed attendees with his innovative creativity (my write up here).

Patrick Renvoise taught us how neuromarketing can be used to sell more effectively (write-up in depth can be found here), and the Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata took us on a wild journey of jazz, funk, rock and soul and what The Sound of Music sounds like with a layer of a little of all of it on top of each of its classically renowned songs. (my write-up of the experience can be found here).

Aneesh Chopra even showed up from the White House to talk about Obama's latest agenda (my extensive write-up here) as did the local mayor Greg Fischer. We headed to the Churchill Downs for taste after taste from the top chefs in Louisville. (I wrote about it extensively here). My write up of Suketu Bhavsar's talk here.

Other more extensive write-ups include how Elizabeth Scharpf is transforming women's lives in Africa one banana leaf at a time, John Moore on the engaged patient and the future of medicine, Georgia Tech's Rosa Arriaga on the Power of Human Censors, and Cory Kidd with his dieting & weight-loss robot Autom. Gambling addict Tim Donaghy talked about the power of addiction and learning from his mistakes. (and how this can be applied to other aspects of our lives outside addictions).

During my Louisville journey, I discovered local artist and glass blower Stephen Rolfe Powell, whose work is nothing short of awe-inspiring. While I was there, I also did a handful of food reviews, so be sure to check out the Kentucky and food/wine categories on We Blog the World for local restaurant and cafe write-ups.

Below is a shot of four of the ten of so bloggers on board for Idea Festival's creative journey. (taken at Churchill Downs, the same downs that hosts the Kentucky Derby every year).

Brown Hotel French chef Laurent Geroli brought a group of about ten bloggers/writers into his kitchen and prepared a 4 course meal in front of our eyes talking us through each dish (Kentucky bourbon was on the table too of course) - check out the food/wine categories as there's an extensive write-up of our experience including 3 videos (also on our YouTube channel). Below is a shot of all of us at the end of the meal. (they gave us very cool personalized chef jackets as well). My write-up of the Brown Hotel restaurant experience can be found here.

Also, my write-ups of Mayan Cafe and Harvest Restaurants can be found here. Below is the infamous pork entree at Mayan Cafe. (definitely order if you are going:)

Idea Festival Labs showcased a number of topics including the Cultural Landscape in and around Louisville (including Ohio River corridor and Yew Dell to name a few), Reimaging the University, Perfecting Our Entrepreneurial Imagination, and Changing the Way Louisville Eats (and the impact of the change on overall health, environment and economy). 

ARZU founder Connie Duckworth also discussed her journey from Wall Street to the dirt roads of Afghanistan.

Below is a video clip of an interview I did with founder Kris Kimel on the last day. Listen to the inspiration behind Idea Festival in his words. As for me? I couldn't stop thinking, creating and being inspired for four days and the sheer volume of my blog posts is one indicator of the extent of that inspiration. Meet Idea Festival's founder: