Phil Wolff: events

Bootcamp & Conference: BlogOn Half-Full

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 17:15:47 GMT

Ted Shelton: "Frankly I felt that BlogOn was a waste of time and money."

I think the BlogOn conference was overproduced. In the name of professionalism the organizing firm turned off potential speakers, oversubscribed sponsors, etc.

I would have liked a debatable topic (aside from *blogging = journalism*. Two people slugging it out. Or a devil's advocate taking challenges from the floor.

I would have liked more hard numbers. Facts. Charts. Diagrams. We have the analytic tools to BS-check them; harder on vague opinions and single-points-of-observation.

I found it disturbing how much money was being commanded (from both attendees and sponsors) for a conference at a university. Maybe it was because it was at Berkeley? Maybe we should have taken over a community college or a Cal State or a DeVry. The facilities costs would have been cheaper at least. I heard an organizer apologize and say the next one would be at a hotel, like that would have been better.

Cost wasn't the whole problem. We're at a stage where early adopters are meeting folks who want to leap the chasm. Huge gaps in knowledge, experience, context, culture, vocabulary. It's the gap.

There are huge ideas to be explored, even in the world of applying blogs to media strategy and the enterprise. And most of the big ideas weren't even on the agenda at BlogOn. Probably because it was catering to those who want to commercialize, fund, and otherwise exploit (excuse me, "get in on") the emerging medium.

Let's fork these conferences so advanced topics on business and technology and culture fit the participants.

"akasig"

Confab

Sat, 17 Jul 2004 23:51:13 GMT

The Social Tools in the Enterprise Symposium had fewer corporate attendees and more academics and consultants than I expected for a business conference. Then again, it's mid-July.

Stowe Boyd was a great host, a cross between David Letterman and Columbo. If you've never seen him in person, he has the voice and affect of actor Robert Patrick. (congrats on the brown belt, Stowe.) In the run up to the event, Stowe wrote an piece for Darwin on the convergence of social tools, blurring the lines between "the four co's": coordination, collaboration, communication, and community. This theme came through in the symposium.

Some high notes.

My presentation (maybe a low note) was a recap of the positive feedback that conditions blogger behavior. A collection of aha! moments that promote expression, control, ownership, sociality, and introspection in a blogger. Before managing a fleet of bloggers (always looking for that plural), let's understand that virtuous cycle and create tools and behaviors that support it.

It was great seeing George Por again. He extracts layers of depth with quick comments, often from his collective intelligence view. [note to self: I think this fits into the third layer of maturity in collective blogging.]

Marc Eisenstadt showed some of his team's tools for knowledge workers: hacks of maps, presence integrated with a video wall, and instant messaging. Marc Canter would have been yelling "Dude! That's a Digital Lifestyle Aggregator!" if it wasn't so workplace focused. This brings home the hard fact that most blogging tools are still too hard to use. Industry needs a ten-fold improvement in user experience in writing, reading, and navigating blogs (imho, especially the writing). Why is "UserLand" the only vendor using WYSIWYG authoring?

I enjoyed the Q&A about Lee's presentation. It's a great case study, one that will be repeated.

Martin's write-up of the sessions is thoughtful, although I think there are 40,000 blogs in China, not 400,000 (but give them a two minutes).

After the show, Allan Engelhardt said content is the slug’s trail in social software:

But the real value of social software in the enterprise is not in the content. Content doesn’t do anything. People do; and what makes a difference to the enterprise is people coming together innovating and changing the organisation. The value of social software is in creating social connections where none existed, or in strengthening existing connections.

Other items:

No Internet connectivity during the conference because the local tech/facilities guy didn't know what a proxy server was.
Doc Searls was in town, showed up for the night-before and night-after dinners. Between Doc and Stowe I'm starting to look harder at low-carb, or at least looking at my sugar intake. Shots of Doc and others lost while attempting upload.
Talking blogging, small business, etc. with Matt Mower on Friday, during an extended walk from Holborn through the city center. Matt knows why I no longer trust him to pick random pubs for a beer. Suffice to say I didn't pack my leathers.
The Bonnington Hotel in Bloomsbury is a three star hotel with five star service. Dozens of problems, only a few from the hotel, but all of them addressed promptly with cheer, courtesy, professionalism, and concern. I'd stay there again.
All the walking and tube hopping helped me connect areas I'd thought of as disconnected. It's reassuring that long time Londoners still carry or consult street/underground maps.
Most of the underground network is intentionally bright, with extra lights and white tiles on walls and ceilings, to stave off claustrophobia. It was sad that emerging from the Holborn station on Saturday, it was darker outside midday than inside the station.

During my UK visit I forgot to:

Visit with the Big Blog Company folks. If I haven't said it before, great blog, great work, spread the word.
Hit the museums. I just wasn't in the mood, too nice outdoors.
Visit Oxford. They had three guys at STES, so they must be up to something.
Walk. I walked for a bit, took the tube too, but there was much more to do.
Take time in the country. England isn't London, though it likes to think so.

Phil's summer of F2F - Part 1

Tue, 08 Jun 2004 18:26:20 GMT

Dear Phil -
Why should we conference in person when the virtual has been so enriched?

The virtual's not that rich.
The virtual's mainly broadcast.
And you miss the interactions that occur during breaks, meals, pub crawls, and the other cracks in an official programme.

So I leave my computer, my home, my city, my country.

Recently, AD:TECH ("Eyeballs for sale! Fresh steaming eyeballs!") and PlaNetwork (Kumbaya embraces digital identity), both in San Francisco.

Coming up:

I'm going to try for the Bio 2004 conference exhibit hall, this week. Especially interested in new bioinformatics and the publications systems that try to promote innovation without giving away secrets. Innovation World's Michael Boland and Mary Kate Stimmler are blogging from the conference.

This week and next are full of East Bay Kerry stuff. A Democratic Party Meetup where East Bay Kerry recruits volunteers. Committee meetings for Fundraising, Chairs, Media Relations, Visibility and GOTV, and Writers. We're having our first Speaker Training & Kerry Teach-In. And a big bunch of us are going to the Oakland A's vs. Pittsburgh Pirates game to show Kerry love to all those Pennsylvanians watching the game. Gary Hart is signing his latest book. And we're sending envoys to other political meetings, like the Lamorinda Democratic Club and the MGO Dem Club. All the time compression of a startup, none of the cash flow, and hard deadlines.

I've started going to Mark Finnern's Future Salons. Smart people, challenging topics. Next one June 18th at SAP Palo Alto. Saw him at Planetwork, first time in daylight. You owe yourself a venue to talk about 10, 20, and 50 years out. Great context and fodder for work and life planning.

In two weeks I'll attend the first day of Supernova, blogging a technical and policy discussion of today's convergence. Time to bone up on spectrum allocation, grid computing, WiMax, and more. I'm glad the wiki (thank you, SocialText) and rss feed (thank you, TypePad) are up.

I'm spending July 4th in Vienna, Austria, for BlogTalk 2.0, the conference by Thomas Burg and the Center for New Media at Danube University. Getting there a little early to spend time with the Actionable Sense Troupe ("How do you switch between Discussion and Action?") and BlogWalk 3.0 in beautiful Krems.

Then to Bloomsbury Square for the first London Symposium on Social Tools For The Enterprise, 12 July. This scans like etiquette and finishing school. It's really about blogs, wikis, social networks, IM'ing, and the like. And turning them into workplace tools. Matt Mower of Evectors Software put it together. Stowe Boyd's there too. I'll have a week in London. Favourite pubs, bookstores, museums, clubs, bordellos? Blogger events?

Back in town for the BlogOn conference. Read Susan Mernit's post. They have a boot camp, similar to workshops I proposed for London. What do bloggers know that others don't? To understand social software, managers need the insights that make blogging and other social tools "click" for users, and to frame those "Aha! moments" into a useful context.

What should I do this fall?

Social Networking Technology Forum, 28-April @ 7pm, Berkeley

Tue, 13 Apr 2004 02:52:51 GMT

Brian Sarrazin turned me on to this Social Networking Forum at Cal. Wednesday, April 28th, 2004, 7p-9:15 pm. Wells Fargo Room on the Haas Campus. Topics look worthwhile:

the economic incentives of SNT and the concept of “incrementalism”
the efficacy of SNT in building long-term relationships
the opportunities of ubiquitous computing, efficient user interfaces, database scaling and more intelligent query engines
the global marketplace as facilitated by SNT; market consolidation

The poor sods roped onto the panel: Eytan Adar of HP, Bobby Chao of Chinese friendster YeeYoo.com, VC Skip Fleshman, Andy Halliday of Spoke (formerly of In-Q-Tel), and Marti Hearst of Cal SIMS. Bonus: PhD Research Presentation by Harvard's Wayne Lim. $15 includes a quick dinner; rui@berkeley.edu for tickets. Bring Bullfighter but listen to voices of skepticism and experience, to what isn't said.

[aka community]

Justify your social network software: fun doesn't count.

Thu, 08 Apr 2004 12:22:51 GMT

Judith Meskill tipped me that Silicon Valley Web Guild is hosting a panel on social network systems, another evening of YASNS puffery. May 6. Four smart people are speaking for their products. Tribe's Mark Pincus, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman (whom Marc Canter says I must get to know; Hi, Reid!), Adrian Scott (who preceded Ryze with an insightful essay on why you must scale your address book), and Spoke's Andy Halliday.

I have a challenge for moderator Rosemary Remacle:

Channel danah boyd.

The honeymoon's over. Ask tough questions.

All these systems depend on people volunteering time and attention, on their pimping friends into the system, on believing you can turn virtual connections into social capital, web pages into gold.

What's in it for me?
Do social network systems (SNS) get you love, sex, or friendship? get you competitive career advantage? get you elected? get you productive?
What's in it for the person who only has a few "friends"?
Do SNS's turn into anything more than a slightly smarter address book?
What is your early conversion rate, the proportion of people who try your system and stick with it after 30 days? after 90?
How do you avoid the Geocities problem of web page tombstones, profiles grown stale and abandoned?
Why do you think your forms are a useful representation of me as a person?
Are you modeling how people really interact or some oversimplification?
Can I leave my contacts to my children?
How do you turn my contacts into action?
Aren't you making it easier for bad actors to be more effective at identity theft, stalking, and emotional abuse?
Don't your systems burn my contacts, expending my social capital without real benefit?

Then ask about the enterprise version.

How will this create value within a mid to large organization?
Why is this more urgent than, say, spending another $100 per head on social skill training or antispam software or giving everyone a news portal?
Will your system work within firewalls?
How will your system work across firewalls? How do you expose just some of the profile of some of the people in an organization to some of the public?
If my company has Spoke inside and my customer has the Google Orkut Appliance, how will they work together?
What about cultural boundaries?
Why should employees invest their time and trust in an enterprise SNS when they know their profiles will be left behind when they move on?
Why is your explicit declaration of relationships better than their tacit discovery?
With what other enterprise IT systems will you integrate your SNS?

Then speak for those of us who invest:

How will you make money now?
How will you compete when AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft follow Google into social networks? You know they're going to turn their buddy lists, email groups, blogrolls, and discussion forums into some version of an SNS. What will you do better and differently?
Orkut was one programmer's side project. Where's the barrier to entry?

This should be a trial by fire, Rosemary. They're smart and have been on the road for more than a year, bored to their gills. Do them a favor. Pull teeth until they give up the answers. Be the skeptical interrogator I know you can be.

[aka community]

Open Source Haggadah

Mon, 05 Apr 2004 23:05:04 GMT

Tonight is the first night of Passover, the night when we tell stories. For the kloggers among you, storytelling is part of Jewish tradition, one way our memes propagated and persisted through millennia.

The stories we tell on Passover are as political as they are spiritual.

Speak truth to power. Moses telling Pharaoh "Let my people go" despite being young, of common blood, on bad terms with the emperor and a speech defect.

Social networks aren't new. Get the word out to mark your doors tonight. To everyone in your community. Without the Internet. Without email, or Orkut, or AIM, or SMS. Just people telling neighbors to pass the word, spare your firstborn.

Freedom is worth a fast march out of town. When we had the chance, we ran out of Egypt. We ate crackers on the go. And it was worth it. Freedom from a state favored religion. Freedom to gather and assemble. Freedom to teach your children to read, to write, to know their heritage. Freedom from state approved murder and torture and rape and all the other trappings of slavery.

Are you more free now than you were in 2000? in 1990? in 1776? Is your government broadening and protecting your freedoms?

Invest in your future, not your fears. The lifetime wandering in the desert was worth it. For their children and the preservation of all they believe in. How are we repairing the world? How are we leaving it a better place?

Some people just won't listen to biological warfare. Ten plagues. Countless deaths and deformities. And still the Pharaoh would not relent. In our time we've seen anthrax used on American soil, and other WMDs used in Iraq. So today's Paharaoh's and downtrodden have bioweapons. Asymmetric warfare with power in mankind's hands, not God's.

Remember the little guy. Rabbis of 1800 years' ago set the seder plate with bitter herbs and a sweet mixture. You eat them together. The mixture to remind you of bricks our enslaved ancestors made. The horseradish to remind you of their sweat and tears. So we make the connection between ourselves and those still in physical and spiritual bondage. And if we're lucky, we act on that connection. What are we doing to assure that every kid gets an education? What are doing to eliminate hunger in our country? How are we forcing our criminal justice system to protect a poor person's civil rights? How are we protecting women better than we did last year?

Set a place for the stranger. You leave a cup of wine for Elijah, should the prophet come calling. But you open your door to anyone who is hungry. Hospitality is the least gift we can give to a stranger or to ourselves. We don't ask for ID or check with Homeland Security.

If you're looking for a haggadah for your seder, I like the Open Source Haggadah Project, a spinoff of Douglas Rushkoff's Open Source Judaism. It helps you roll your own from traditional and modern sources. In our civilization's spirit of inquiry and dialog. Chag sameach.

I'm back and it's going to be a long weekend.

Sat, 14 Feb 2004 05:36:02 GMT

I have a bad case of blogstipation: pent up posts rattling in my head after two weeks on the road. My first was in Whatcom County, Washington, the week before their Democratic caucuses, with a day in Vancouver. I had part of a weekend home, then off to the Electronic Democracy Teach-In and O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference in San Diego. And I'm back. And catching up on email, sleep, surfing, the local campaign (how strange that they're prospering without me).

This by way of letting you know that I'm about to go running off at the blog for the next few days.

Take Back The Streets - San Francisco

Sun, 01 Feb 2004 14:25:35 GMT

[aka propagandart]

Blogger dinner in Vancouver. Thursday, Feb 5.

Sun, 01 Feb 2004 14:15:17 GMT

I'm coming up to Vancouver, B.C., on Thursday. Anyone for lunch or dinner? Call me: 510-444-8234 or email philw et dijest. com. Can you suggest spicy noodles, or other fare? Roland? We can talk about social software, politics, the horrible commercials on the superbowl this year, blogging, whatever.

SXSW - Austin March 2004

Fri, 02 Jan 2004 17:57:43 GMT

Nick Finck:

Blogging for Business - Blogs have changed the face of the Web, and they're not just for geeks and students anymore. Join D. Keith Robinson (Digital Web Magazine's Editor In Chief), Phil Wolff (A Klog Apart), Nick Bradbury (creator of Homesite, TopStyle and FeedDemon), DL Byron (creator of the Clip-n-Seal) and yours truly in Austin, Texas as we discuss some real world business applications for blogs and blog related technology at the 2004 SXSW Interactive Festival. The festival will be held March 12th through 16th at the Austin Convention Center.

After BloggerCon: Ed Blogger San Francisco, 22-23 Nov 2003, non-conference.

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 20:00:25 GMT

Put it on your calendar:

WHAT: Ed Blogger 2003

WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, 22-23 November 2003

WHERE: San Francisco. Places under discussion.

WHO: People interested in weblogs as a tool for education.

There is room for a real conference.

First, a track on blogging in the classroom. Best practices by grade level. By subject matter. For special needs. In curriculum development. Blogs as a factor in verbal performance, learning styles, collaboration and social skills. Thousands of teachers are using blogs; let's share the best of what they learn.

Second, blogging as it relates to school operations. Like a business, schools have internal and external communications that keep things running. Student security and privacy. Parent-teacher communication. Teacher-supervisor and teacher-teacher communication. School-district communication. Blogs in school libraries. Blogs in volunteer coordination and fundraising. Again, share new knowledge and practical experience.

Third, technical implementation. This is the track for the instructional technologist and IT folks. Workshops on setting up weblog servers. Tool and vendor comparisons. Enabling search and newsreaders. Getting bandwidth for cheap or free. Worst practices. etc.

Somewhere along the way I want to see blogging as fodder for academic research. Let the grad students develop a theory for the medium. Integrate blogging into existing theories of learning, behavior, and motivation.

Welcome, Governor. Learn from Dean.

Wed, 08 Oct 2003 16:49:13 GMT

I'm back from "BloggerCon".

I bet few people are prepared the first time they become California governor. The reality of the job is harrowing, demanding, and requires knowledge and skills rarely produced in the private sector. Understanding the law. Developing consensus. Managing compromise. Finding a third way. Making lose-lose choices decisively. I think Truman said to surround yourself with people smarter than yourself and who frequently disagree with your point of view. I wish our new governor wisdom and patience.

I met James Moore of Berkman on Sunday. He writes today that the Clark campaign team is constipated (my word) by inner circle control.

By contrast, the Dean campaign is open to people and ideas. It is "out of control" in the best sense of the word. Innovators such as the people of MoveOn and Meetup and DeanLink are embraced. The campaign is fresh, alive, and inviting.

Exactly.

What do you think this means after Dean becomes President?

Can you run a White House this way?

How would this affect your relationships with the Hill?

How would this kind of openness change the way the executive branch is governed?

The military is increasingly moving combat operations into rigorously decentralized control with more individuals having more information to go along with their authority. I talked with a Naval captain who said that when a battle might last 30 seconds, there's no time for running things up a chain of command. The Dean campaign staff is the only one getting it. They understand the campaign is not the staff, it's the million people on the ground talking, meeting, paying for change.

Voters come to Dean as much for the openness of his campaign as for his message and the hope to beat Bush. His campaign makes you believe you matter, you make a difference. And then they prove it. Repeatedly. When was the last time that happened in Democratic politics?

Governor, remember the California Bloggers Platform, an invitation to transparency, community, productivity, and literacy. And take Winer's saying to heart: Ask not what the Internet can do for you, ask what you can do for the Internet. "akasig"

Phil Wolff's profesional bio for BloggerCon. Suggestions?

Mon, 29 Sep 2003 14:39:58 GMT

I'm presenting at BloggerCon and needed to post a short bio. What do you think?

Philip Wolff hails from Oakland, California. In the last year he presented at the ProjectWorld conference (project blogging), BlogTalk Wien (the future of blogging), and BloggerCon (blogging behind the firewall). He posts regularly to a klog apart and Blogcount, and in moments of apoplexy to Don't Blog: Blogging the Weblog Backlash. Phil has been blogging for 5 years, computing for more than 30 years, a marketing and technology veteran of the Naval Supply Systems Command, Gateway, Compaq, Wang Laboratories, Bechtel National, and Adecco SA where he served as global VP for strategy and technology. When Phil isn't helping companies rethink their employment sites, his Evanwolf Group helps them develop strategies, plans and technologies for workplace blogging.
Contact: Ryze, Skype, email, Yahoo! IM, AIM.

I tried to say who, where, work history, affiliations, interests. And keep it short.

Suggestions? Things to add, subtract, restate?

Should all bloggers post a professional bio? "akasig"

Phil Wolff's slate: No, Bustamente, No, No.

Sun, 28 Sep 2003 07:29:28 GMT

My vote counts. I have four things to vote on Monday or Tuesday:

NO: Recall.
- He won the election fair and square. He shaved $30 billion off the state's deficit so far. Let him do his job.
Cruz M. Bustamante: for Governor if recall passes.
- I respect the role Bustamante has played in resolving the budget stalemate so far. He's a Democrat. And unlike Arnie, he accepted the voluntary spending limits.
- Why not Schwartzenegger? He lies about Davis, says only rich people are honest, and won't explain what services he will cut to close the budget deficit.
NO: Proposition 53 "Funds Dedicated for State and Local Infrastructure. "
- Unfunded mandate. You want my vote? Spell out the services you'll cut and the added taxes/fees to pay for your project.
NO: Proposition 54 Bans "Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin. "
- We can scrap tracking when we go ten years without measurable discrimination in work, education, health care, or criminal justice. I live in Oakland, California, and we are far from ready.

What's your slate? "akasig"

The BloggerCon lineup is too good.

Sat, 27 Sep 2003 19:46:12 GMT

I'll be in Boston Wednesday lunch through Wednesday lunch. If you'd like to meet or eat or drink or walk around or get help or talk shop, write me, "skype me", or call my mobile at 510.444.8234.

Why go early and stay late?

Holy mackerel, have you seen the BloggerCon program? A week from tomorrow I have to choose between Halley Suitt talking about weblog business policy and applications (still soaking in the glory of her first Harvard Business Review case study), Doctor Reider reviewing examples of weblogs in medicine (blog or die!), and the hugely creative Susan Mernit setting the agenda for blogging technology evolution. How am I supposed to choose?

Thirty minutes later I have no choice: I'm presenting on blogs in the workplace, continuing where Halley leaves off. But Dave Winer puts me up against Jon Udell on aggregators (damn, I want to pick his brain on that), the professor Reverend AKMA (whom I haven't seen in 9 months and who blows my mind every time read or run into him), and - get this - Jeff Jarvis on presidential campaign blogging. Shit. Shit. Shit. I'm blogging for the Kerry campaign in Northern California and damn if I don't want to hang with Jeff for 90 minutes talking shop. How am I supposed to concentrate on my own session with all that brilliance just radiating from the other rooms?

OK, there's lunch. Maybe I can hang with them on Mass Ave.

But after lunch? Fuck! Same thing! Joi Ito wings in from Japan to discuss all those tools that glue the blogoshpere together, what I want to be doing. Next door Harold Gilchrist shows us how real-world audioblogging is done, imho paving the way for Canter's fat-pipe vision of everyone rich-media blogging everything. But nooooo, the choice gets harder because master conspirator Eugene Volokh, all the way from UCLA Law is going to explain how we're all going to jail for blogging. Are you making sense of all this? I breathe all this stuff but Andrew Grumet is going to explain it all in plain English, an enormous challenge.

An abundance of choice.

And this is just the quickly thrown together FREE day two of BloggerCon.

What questions should I ask?

Skype tonight: 6pm Pacific Coast Brewing Co.

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 16:36:18 GMT

How could Skype transform your industry? Your favorite tools? What would a Skype-enabled newsreader look like? Does WiFi + Skype = POTS? What social network analysis would you like to pull from the Skype network? How much money can we make in Skype ring-tones? What commands could we stick at the end of "call://userid/"?

Now add beer.

Wednesday, 24 September 2003
6pm

Pacific Coast Brewing Co.
906 Washington St. (in Old Oakland, a block from 9th and Broadway)
Oakland, California 94607
Yahoo! map

New! Guest caller: The Skype team all the way from Denmark (2-3 in the morning Copenhagen time).

Call me at 510-444-8234 or Skype me.

Skype Dinner: Wednesday, 6pm-9pm, 20 Sept, Oakland.

Sun, 21 Sep 2003 19:17:15 GMT

Stuart Henshall and I need to talk. We talked on Skype. Now we're going to talk in person. Join us for dinner in Oakland this Wednesday. On the agenda:

What are the traditional business opportunities for Internet telephony?
What are the non-traditional, blog and social software -based business opportunities?
What would we ask Skype to open to independent developers?

So:

Wednesday, 24 September 2003
6pm
Oakland
we're still looking for a venue: quiet, WiFi, BART-friendly.
I'll broadcast the location here, and by email if you write or Skype me.

Seybold meal #1: Gregor Rothfuss and friends.

Tue, 09 Sep 2003 20:51:36 GMT

Supper at cwas hearty. So was the conversation.

From left to right, one of my favorite bloggers, Gregor Rothfuss, tech journalist William Reilly, open source leader Michael Wechner, and me.

Gregor told us stories of Burning Man. Holy effigy. Gift/barter economy in the high desert. Parties all night. Concerts. Old West movie sets constructed for the week. Rituals and ceremonies for 30,000 people. How do you go to Seybold or any plain old computer show after Burning Man?

William is bringing his serious development experience to Seybold, reporting for CMS Review (I have a little press-pass envy). He asks insightful questions in a quiet way, but that may have been the jet lag from Boston.

Michael and Greg are here from Zurich, although Greg is looking for Cambridge digs.

Michael and Greg are bootstrapping Wyona : R&D, creating custom moblogging ASPs. If people will pay for ringtones, will they pay to post photos from their phones? Who are the natural partners for this technology? If people post from their phones, what is needed to help them find and surf their part of the blogosphere?

Michael is at Seybold to host and compete in tonight's OSCOM Hackathon/Sprint, featuring WebDAV and the Atom spec. I love code sprints. It's the height of voyeurism, seeing someone's most intimate programming secrets, the little tricks they use under pressure. If you're in town, stop by. "akasig"

11th Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology. 9-12 Sept 2003.

Mon, 08 Sep 2003 19:13:33 GMT

It's time again to stretch your brain. If you're in the Bay Area this week, drive to Burlingame for the 11th Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology.

If you're old enough you may remember how fascinating it was that someone could write the Declaration of Independence on the back of a stamp, or carve miniature sailing ships in a bottle. Ummm, this is smaller.

I can follow the presentations with my college chem1A memories. The good news: tutorials start tomorrow.

Most of the research being presented is 2-5 years from commercialization. You can see where the scientists are putting their time and their investors are betting their money. For those who want to understand the trajectory of this transformational technology, and get a realistic feel for the short term timeline, there are few better places to spend this week than the San Francisco Airport Marriott. btw, I'm a huge fan of the Foresight Institute.

With my background in marketing management and software engineering, nanotechnology is a huge stretch for me. Especially if I want to add value. As in IT, the bleeding edge today is boring routine in 12 months. So I have to both catch up and climb on the new treadmill. There's nothing like a challenge.

Tonight: Film Industry Meetup, 8pm.

Wed, 03 Sep 2003 14:31:58 GMT

Film Industry. My local TypePad, MetaFilter, and Edwards in 2004 meetups were cancelled; too few signups.

This is about mediablog literacy. I'm not a videographer. But I have a cheap webcam, video production software, digital cameras, a collection of microphones and other stuff attachable to my computer. However, a pen in my pocket doesn't mean I'm Shakespeare. So I'm off to start hanging with those grok these narrative storytelling forms.

p.s. Smokey and the Bandit-worthy traffic accident on the Bay Bridge. Car carrier (one of those double deck trucks dealers use to move 8-10 cars) slams in bridge supports, carrier's cab teeters over side of bridge, car falls off carrier with a complete flip, everyone else swerves to avoid it, forces another carrier into the barriers on the on the other side of the road. All lanes blocked at first, bridge and access roads back up for 2-2.5 hours and turns them into a 4 mph parking lot 9-11 miles long. Cars and drivers running out of gas and overheating.

It took two hours to make the 12 minute drive. The ride back was uneventful.

About BloggerCon.

Thu, 14 Aug 2003 06:11:03 GMT

Andrew Orlowski summarized in this article a post and thread that tore into Dave Winer and BloggerCon. A few thoughts.

First, the academic study of blogging is a very good thing. Like any other area of human behavior, we may be able to add to our body of knowledge. I attended BlogTalk in Vienna this Spring where social scientists from all over Europe shared their studies and reports. I don't think Dave is assembling the same kind of academically rigorous conference.

When people talk about the effect of cars on the environment and cars on pollution and cars that kill people, we don't blow them off just because cars are ordinary and everywhere. Not every driver cares, especially when they're driving, but these topics can be matters of life and death. There are millions of people who've picked up this new form of writing in public. What happens as this new tool goes mainstream? (You might get a kick out my Don't Blog! slide show. Tres pessimist.)

Second, the invitations were sent either on request (you could submit your own name) or when people on several mailing lists suggested names. The idea was to invite people, of any political persuasion, who'd have something to say on one of several blog related themes. First among them is blogging, democracy, politics. So you can imagine why people as diverse as Tom Tomorrow and Instapundit were invited, not the message but understanding the form and the medium. It's a deep and powerful subject.

Third, the money thing is completely FUBAR. Most conference organizers will line up sponsors and budget things before announcing a conference. Dave has done spontaneous and free gatherings before, co-opting a community college lecture hall for a few hours on a few days' notice. This is more ambitious and Dave clearly didn't secure funding to cover operating costs. Since the first announcement, they've started a pool for sponsored attendance, where sponsors can adopt one or more visitors, waiving the $500 fee. I'll pay for my transport (I can swing by to visit family, friends, and interesting strangers) but $500 out of pocket for one day is too much for me.

Last, I wrote a little thing called "The Bloggers' Platform" for the California recall election.
Five goals upon which the blogosphere may be able to agree. I'd like to see an evolution of concerns and values that are distinct to our communities.

[a klog apart]

Semantic blogging: Haves and Wants.

Tue, 05 Aug 2003 02:52:44 GMT

"manmachinelogo"Anselm wants to help Burning Man participants to barter better (cash transactions prohibited).

People's blogs would become 'wishlist blogs' and we'd match people up with complementary interests. Two things have to be done to do this:

We'll have to provide a small extension to MT so that MT can help people semantically tag their blog entries with <want> and <have> as well as <geo:Point> and <geo:Time>.

Also we'll have to provide a small aggregator that can search for matching entries. On headmap I wrote a simple search service as a proof of concept at headmap searcher [ note this service is not always up ] so making something like this run at Burning Man seems feasible with some work.

This is an example of a component blog application:

Someone with a particular purpose (helping a local marketplace)
defining a new component (extending the weblog data model to include other content)
that other bloggers would discover and embrace (see adaptive blogosphere)
so new community services and clients can meet the needs.

via Marc via Danny.

The Bloggers Platform

Sat, 02 Aug 2003 06:33:59 GMT

I asked Dave Winer if he wanted to run for California Governor and he asked me what's the bloggers' platform?

There's an old Jewish principle of elevating simple things and behaviors through attention. Make washing your hands before meals a spiritual cleansing by holding certain ideas in your mind, focused by a briefly uttered prayer. When weblogs are our voices, the blogosphere can be our vox populi.

The blogger platform: Elevate blogging from narrative to activism, from lifestyle to politics, from netizen to citizen.

Platform points:

A weblog for every elected official before the 2004 election.

Improve transparency
Conversation with constituencies more than lobbyists
Improve the collective memory of our term-limited legislators

A weblog for every student and teacher by 2005.

Investing in our future workforce
Assumes access in every classroom
Better parental involvement

A weblog for every Californian by 2006.

Economic development in a knowledge, service, and collaboration economy
Shorten the time to create jobs and find work

Censor-free Internet access in every public library.

Democracy needs freedom to read

Enterprise blognets for state and local government.

Government services turbocharged by collaboration and communication
Government workers in more intimate communication with their customers

In short, participatory democracy between elections. The anti-recall alternative.

I'm thinking small. What message would you like the Secretary of State to deliver to 20 million households?

Oakland Music Festival, 27 July 2003.

Sat, 19 Jul 2003 13:15:49 GMT

Erykah Badu, Jonathan Butler, Floetry, JonB and others. Outdoor fund raiser for the The Jazz Institute; "Help save music education in Oakland."

The Don't Blog Weblog.

Sun, 15 Jun 2003 23:53:15 GMT

Every project needs a weblog. Even the ...

Don't Blog weblog.

Blogging the growing backlash.

What happens when blogging becomes mainstream? What bad things will we face? Other technologies experienced a public backlash after a hype cycle. This blog attempts to chronicle that coming backlash.

New expanded slide show.

In Browser
In PowerPoint
Windows Fonts for the PowerPoint show
The blog's XML RSS feed

Recent headlines from the future:

Microsoft gains 87% share of Enterprise Blogging Market.
Wife Wins Joint Weblog In Divorce Court.
Spammers Tailor Mail Using Blog Data.
Trackbacker Worm Shuts Down Blog Community For 3rd Day.
Google deletes 23,000 weblogs under PRC pressure; Terra closes division deletes 150,000 blogs.

Be sure to post your suggestions, related links, or discuss the risks.