Thanks to Shannon Clark, Web 2.0 Expo’s wonderful blog partner for writing up this post. Folks, you’re getting tips from a true SF connoisseur of great food so if I were you, I’d eat up this post (and yes, bad pun intended). Click here for full article.
What is Ada Lovelace Day? It is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology, named in honor of one of the first computer programmers. A few months ago, Web 2.0 Expo Europe speaker, social software consultant, and inspiration in her own right Suw Charman-Anderson published the following on PledgeBank.com:
“I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if1,000 other people will do the same.”
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In participation and appreciation to all the wonderful ladies in technology, here is my interview with @redsoda aka Henriette Weber who lives mostly in Copenhagen but can be found always online. We met at the Reboot10 Conference in Copenhagen where we had a really interesting conversation on Web 2.0, community, social media, and the shifting landscape of new media we live in today. I found Henriette to be a really interesting community person and I’ve been trying to collect their insights for this blog … I’m happy to have a chance to share some of her thoughts and projects with you today.
When people ask you at an event, “What do you do?” – how do you typically respond?
It depends on the situation I’m in and who’s around. When people ask me what I do, I normally say that I “help companies use their online presence as a marketing tool”. But it’s so much more me to say that I help companies not to look like asses online.
Why are you interested in Web 2.0?
I have been interested in Web 2.0 for quite a while now. I love to see things transform, and being in IT suddenly got a lot more exciting. In all of my employments I have only worked with large IT companies (started out at apple computers as 19 years old) and startups. Web 2.0 made the web creative and fun. I think the internet these days is the most creative place in the world, and I love every minute of it =)
What do you think Web 2.0 means?
Well I can tell you what web 2.0 means to me. It means that people get closer together. No matter what relation you want to enhance, web 2.0 can help you build it. No matter what project you want to undertake, web 2.0 is the wind under your wings. Also I think that Web 2.0 is misunderstood in some ways. Basically some companies and consultants are sure that if they put stuff on the internet it will spread on it’s own. It does happen, but not a lot. You need really excellent content to have it spread like wildfire on it’s own. So it becomes a strategic question. I have recently written an ebook about “why every company should be a rockband” – which helps you deal with the internal things in a company that basically makes the company ready for web 2.0 – I call it rockbandism – it’s pretty cool.
What projects are you working on these days?
These days I am doing a lot of speaking at conferences and I am getting back into consulting and strategizing the web. The last half year I have been working on getting a book together called “return on involvement – how companies can use the internet to create business unusual” – it’s still not done yet – but almost there. When I went through the final rewrite I had evolved a bit so I had two more chapters to give. They are going to a part of the book – so hang in there, I’m almost done.
Why did you start rockbandism?
I started the whole rockbandism thing because it makes sense to me. Coming from a girl like me, it doesn’t really say anything new, that you haven’t heard before, but it gives people a tool to manage how to make your company better, authentic, trustworthy and remarkable. I mean, all the young dudes like Seth Godin and Hugh Macleod have been covering this for ages. But people get giggly when you ask them what rockband they see their company as – and what rockband they really want their company to be. It makes sense when you highlight examples of companies doing really good and reaching out and touch faith (or the internet or whatever). So rockbandism is something that companies should implement, especially because if they don’t, I think they won’t be around for much longing. we have a huge global crisis these days that is both ecological, financial and about food, and I really think that this crisis will make us smarter. Our systems doesn’t scale. it’s time to think something new, better, because as consumers we have more choices. We don’t need to choose bad stuff anymore. For real, I think that these better alternatives are going to transform the world. In 5 years time you can’t drive a hummer down the street without being yelled at. We are realizing that we have a joined cause here – which is to save our asses (basically).
The great thing is that we have all the best tools in the world to do this, but as long as it is kept in the dark we don’t know about these tools. I think it’s extremely hard to be a lobbyist for something not worth fighting for anymore, because you can’t hide stuff. It needs to be open these days, otherwise we will find a better alternative. I read the other day that Exxon had made a thinktank and had conferences questioning the truth of climate change. I’m so over oil. Seriously sometimes I think that if the world ran out of oil, it would be a disaster, and it would chaos, but it would make us think differently and more creative, and humanity would come back brighter. I think we always will.
You need to check out rockbandism because the current organisational and leadership structure of the world hasn’t changed since the industrial revolution. This turned into a rant. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.
Focus on the people and the connections, not just the technology.
Work smarter, not harder.
Who ever thinks they’ll grow up and be a conference organizer?
These are some of the statements that Web 2.0 Expo conference co-chair Jennifer Pahlka shares during her Women 2.0 In Conversation interview.
Jen Pahlka is also:
- TechWeb’s General Manager of the Web 2.0 conferences and Gov 2.0 events
- One of the first true Community Managers (before it became a buzz word)
- A strategist, curator, thinker, technologist and industry veteran
- A mentor, colleague, friend and the person who hired me into this job
(Thank you Jen, for without you there would be no @Janerri. And for sure I never thought I’d grow up to be a conference organizer.)
Web 2.0 Expo is proud to be a community sponsor of SF New Tech, the largest tech meetup in the Bay Area. On Wednesday, March 11th not only will you get smart demos and drinks but you’ll get FREE TACOS (yum)!!
I had a great phone call last week with Sarah Milstein – NYTimes.com writer, O’Reilly Radar blogger, @tweetreport geek, speaker and organizer of Web2Open, our official on-site (free) unconference. I took some notes and decided to creatively transcribe it for the blog. Please note that this is not word for word how this call went down. It’s after hours and I’m adlibbing some of this for your reading pleasure.
Me: Hi Sarah, long time no talk. How’s it going?…
(To which extremely intelligent chit chat ensues)
Me: So you’ll be speaking at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco. I’m excited! What’s your talk about?
Sarah: Well, my talk is all about Twitter
(I actually knew this. Her title “Effective Twitter for Communication & Product Integration” kinda said it all)
The two questions I’m focusing the session on is: 1. What is Twitter? and 2. How do we use it, particularly in a business or professional setting. This is relevant because people are wondering IF this is a tool they should use, and more importantly, HOW it can be integrated into a bigger communications strategy.
I’ll present several examples of companies using Twitter and how that is evolving. I’ll give practical advice on what kinds of things to post, case studies of the good, bad, and better. I’ll show how companies are using Twitter to for better engagement and interactions – making customers happier, appeasing the angry ones.Also, a lot of customers have integrated their products with Twitter. I’m still doing some research but I’ve already found great examples: Wesabe, a personal finance site, has a feature where you can tweet expenses directly to your account. Travel social site Dopplr allows you to tweet your trip updates to your network.
I’m showing these examples to inspire some thinking, to make people consider how to use Twitter as an effective and authentic communications channel.
(Sarah, I just learned that Icanhascheeseburger also integrated Twitter. Now when you favorite a LOLcat it gets tweeted out through your account. Does that count? I hope that counts, I love that site.)
ME: Conference chair Jen Pahlka mentions Twitter in her opening when we launched our spring theme The Power of Less. What are your thoughts about the power of Twitter in this era of less?
SARAH: By its form Twitter is about less. It’s about the economy of words for conveying powerful ideas.
It’s interesting that twitter is emerging as a valuable, fun and inspiring tool, at a time when people are looking at major economic and environmental issue – almost certainly where we are going – is using and spending less.
In a way it’s an interesting forerunner in that trend.
The most effective way to provide value in your Twitter stream is to not talk about yourself but rather issues in your sector and industry. And provide links to this information. As more industries are learning to be more environmentally and economically sustainable, they realize they can share useful and meaningful information through this channel. It’s a great tool for sharing insights on living better, working with less.
Tim tells us to work on things that matter – Twitter is a way to find people, issues, organizations. Twitter is a way to help companies connect to resources and to each other.
ME: Twitter is credited with starting a micro-blogging revolution but people forget that the 140 character limitation originated because of the SMS function. So I say part of Twitter’s success is luck and timing.
SARAH: Ok, true. Interestingly I’ve read research (which I can’t find anymore) that headlines are in the vein of 140-160 characters. It’s a good amount of space for people to absorb information. There is something deep about that and it’s not totally coincidental.
Twitter is an awesome example of how contraints can foster creativity.
(Amen sista! That’s exactly what Jen’s been since Web 2.0 Summit)
We are all drowning in our email due to the length and volume of messages. Twitter provides a great alternative to exchanging information in a compact and efficient way that makes it easier for other people absorb.
ME: Any ideas for the future of Twitter?
SARAH: I think Twitter is the frontrunner in what is a whole new medium – micro-messaging.
Facebook launched their status the same time that Twitter came out in beta. Twitter created a new category in messaging. But as we progress, Twitter will be one of many in this medium, in the way that there are lots of players in the ecosystem of email.There are companies that create all kinds of layers of routing, and micro-messaging will be the same – personal accounts, work accounts, behind and inside the firewall, public or private systems, etc. Hopefully it will be more like email than IM.
Twitter as a company has an opportunity to define the space and be a huge player but there’s no guarentee it will be. There are many examples of companies that created categories but couldn’t figure out how to stay relevant and succeed in them.
They’ve launched something greater than themselves.
A lot of companies will create pieces of the ecosystem to thrive in. Twitter won’t own the whole picture… but I’m hopeful that Twitter will stay successful.
Sarah, thanks so much for that really thoughtful interview.
Sarah Milstein is author of “Twitter and the Micromessaging Revolution,” an O’Reilly research report. She is currently founding 20Slides.
For those who want to hear more, attend her session on Wednesday, April 1st @ 10:50am.
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NOTE: I had originally intended this interview to be about organizing Web2Open but we got sidetracked. Thankfully Sarah has offered to become an author on this blog to provide information and updates about Web2Open as they happen.
Feb 2nd, 2009 |
Janetti ChonLast week Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine (writer, professor, blogger and media guru) launched his new book: What Would Google Do?
Publisher Harper Collins describes it as such:
In a book that’s one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual, internet impresario and blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google—the fastest-growing company in history—to discover forty clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by. At the same time, he illuminates the new worldview of the internet generation: how it challenges and destroys, but also opens up vast new opportunities. His findings are counterintuitive, imaginative, practical, and above all visionary, giving readers a glimpse of how everyone and everything—from corporations to governments, nations to individuals—must evolve in the Google era.
Along the way, he looks under the hood of a car designed by its drivers, ponders a worldwide university where the students design their curriculum, envisions an airline fueled by a social network, imagines the open-source restaurant, and examines a series of industries and institutions that will soon benefit from this book’s central question.
The result is an astonishing, mind-opening book that, in the end, is not about Google. It’s about you.
Jeff’s been working on this book for a while and he presented some of his thinking, and relevant case studies at last fall’s Web 2.0 Expo New York. Co-presented with BusinessWeek, take a look at the pearls of wisdom Jeff shared with our attendees in his session: What Would Google Do? How Media Must Revolutionize Their Thinking.
And if you’re in NY tomorrow for 2009′s inaugural NY Tech Meetup then you’ll get a special treat as Jeff will present a book talk. The rest of NYTM will focus on the theme: “Mobile Meets Social” and there is a great line up of East Coast companies that will demo for your favor:
Peek (the award winning email device for everyone)
Xtify (the API for location-based apps)
OMICU (OMG you’ll love this)
Mobile Commons (the SMS back-end for some of the world’s most important campaigns)
Coovents (where’s the cheap beer?)
Flixwagon (are you live-casting this?)
&
viaPlace (the platform for marking things around you)
Web 2.0 Expo conference chairs Jen Pahlka and Brady Forrest will also be attending the meetup, so stop by, say hello and let them know your thoughts.
Have fun NY. Miss you & wish I could be there!
~ Janetti
Most of what I write here, I write with Web 2.0 Expo attendees in mind. A big part of my job is developing content and programs for our attendees, hoping to be in tune enough with this industry and community to help make something worth coming to. But I spend a fair amount of my time working with our exhibitors and sponsors as well, and I’m always on the lookout for ways to include them in the event that brings them value without creeping the attendees out. In fact, I work for two audiences of marketers: the one in our Marketing & Community track in the conference, and the one building booths and rolling out programs aimed at winning you over while you’re at the show. Both are struggling to find what works as the ground shifts beneath us.
I found myself the target of one particularly effective marketing strategy this weekend. I’m training to run a half marathon through Team In Training, a program that benefits the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and we had our send-off meeting this Saturday, the one where they tell you you’re ready, hand you your race day jersey, and wish you good luck. They also remind you to run with electrolytes, gels, a bandana, a stopwatch, a shoe wallet with $20 in it (for hailing a cab, natch!) and about thirty other things that I’ve made it all the way through training without acquiring. Which is why it was handy they held the meeting in a Sports Basement. And handed out 20% off cards to everyone for their shopping convenience. If it sounds a little heavy-handed, it wasn’t, and here’s why: this Sports Basement (and maybe others, I don’t know) featured a large meeting area furnished with old but insanely comfortable couches and overstuffed chairs, a whiteboard, and sideboard for serving food and drinks. We’d all just come from a seven mile run, so the cushy seating was pure heaven. I didn’t question it as I grabbed my coffee and bagel and put my sore feet up on the chair in front of me, but as I sat there it occurred to me that someone had had the forethought to set aside a significant chunk of space (and right near the front of the store, too) for us. Isn’t floor space the most valuable commodity in retail? Especially when you’re catering to every sport under the sun? Whatever their planner’s calculus, it paid off. Not only were 30 well-rested, well-fed runners let loose in the store with shopping lists, but we each felt like much more than a customer, we felt like honored guests of a host who shared our values.
Maybe it’s a small thing, but not as small as it seems. Someone had to decide that Sports Basement was going to be in the community business. Besides the initial decision to set aside the space, whose job is it to furnish it and to coordinate use of it? Who cleans up? These are tasks not often found on marketing job descriptions. And yet over time it’s probably won them more brand loyalty than most of their paid efforts.
As much as I live on the web, most of my work culminates in the creation of temporary IRL spaces, and I can pretty easily mimic this effect strategy at our events. I’m looking forward to working with some of the top brands on the web to create sponsored spaces for you to enjoy at Web 2.0 Expo. Other retailers are doing the same; one I know of is Design Within Reach, which has been hosting Biz Ladies meetups (yes, I’m outing myself as a DesignSponge fan.) Corporations do it too, when they lend meeting space for user groups and interest groups. Creating community on the web, on the other hand, is both easier (no couches needed) and much harder (30,000 members instead of 30 means a lot more clean up, even if the crumbs are digital). You start with the decision to be in the community business. You set aside the space, and find the tools. Then you find it’s more work than you thought, and you hire a community manager. If Micki Krimmel is right, this is when the fun starts:
Sure, the Community Manager can edit comments and moderate inappropriate forum posts but what else can she do? She can change the entire culture of your company. She can advocate for your community. She can keep you one step ahead of your competitors. She can help you build a sustainable business… if you let her.
Then you’re really in the community business.
Come hear Micki opine on What Would the Community Manager Do? On Wednesday April 1 at the Web 2.0 Expo.
Today is the start of a new political era. Barack Obama enters the Whitehouse as our 44th President and initiates the process of change that’s been his mantra. Many say that President Obama’s laborous efforts in using technology – to spread his vision of change, crowdsource opinion, and penetrate youth voters – is what landed him in the Whitehouse.
And today, the Web 2.0 team would like to congratulate all the members of our community that contributed to creating Change.gov (President Obama’s election site) which has officially become Whitehouse.gov – the official website of the Whitehouse.
I know Ustream and Automattic have their services on the site, what other Web 2.0 company is invested? Share in the comments here, we’d all like to know.
Thanks, and CONGRATULATIONS!
This week I attended New York Tech Meetup’s monthly gathering at the beautiful IAC building. Straying from the usual five-minute company demos, the presentations were given by nine candidates competing for the spot as the new organizer to the largest meetup group in the tri-state area.
Founded four years ago by Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup.com and co-produced by Web 2.0 Expo advisory board member Dawn Barber, NYTM has grown to a whopping 7,500 plus members, and it’s still growing. And in the spirit of meetup, which emphasizes self-organization and community consensus, rather than hand-selecting his successor Scott and Dawn announced an open election.
Hare the folks who decided to step up:
1. Gregory Magarshak
2. Joe DiPasquale
3. James Wallace
4. Joshua Sherman
5. Chip Welsh
6. Sanford Dickert
7. Oz Sultan
8. Owen Brunette
9. Nate Westheimer
The online election process.
Today at 12:01am EST the online polling began.
Members can view videos and read candidate statements for more details.
Polling closes promptly at 11:59pm EST.
“NYTM is for you and about you. Self-organize. Vote.” ~ Dawn Barber
The future of NYTM.
In a certain sense, this community is still in its infancy. And as curious as everyone is about WHO will be the next organizer, the bigger question seems to be centered on WHAT this organizer will do to evolve and grow this prospering tech community.
Joshua Sherman proposed “more beer” – to mean more post-demo networking & social events. Oz Sultan created a vision of getting city support via subsidies while Sanford Dickert presented a passionate statement inviting members to join the conversation about the future of NYTM via www.nytechvision.com.
James Wallace suggests making NYTM more diverse and more inclusive: “let’s stop having the same people talk to each other and branch out to different groups, verticals.”
And Nate Westheimer (organizer of @w2e New York’s Web2Open) emphasized coordination and collaboration as the key to more cross-community involvement.
Alley vs. Valley
Many candidates mentioned that the ideas and talent arising from Silicon Alley are on a level that battles the goings-on of Silicon Valley. Competition breeds innovation, and as a New Yorker and a (very) recent transplant to San Francisco, I look forward to watching and participating as the battle rages on.
An end of an era.
To close out December’s meetup Dawn uncharacteristically took center stage to thank Scott for all the work he’s put into the NY tech community, a statement that was met with a standing ovation. Although Scott and Dawn will stay on the to-be-formed board to continue to provide direction and support for whoever takes the stage next, come Tuesday, January 6th New York City’s tech community will welcome a new MC and new leadership to carry NYTM through 2009 onward.
Thanks Scott and Dawn for all the work you’ve done to build this great community.
Good luck candidates and good luck NYTM!
* Membership to NYTM has been temporarily suspended until elections are over.
Twitter @w2e