Connecting the Dots

Blogging: Gain Credibility, Connect Globally

Heading to London tomorrow for a family vacation so postings will be light for the next week. Throwing my atoms on to an airplane and sitting for 8 hours has caused me to contemplate blogging, how the world is flattening, and how we're all connected.

Let me tie these together and explain why you having your own blog is probably more important and critical to your future -- and connecting with others around an exponentially flattening world -- then a resume, email address, fax machine ("What are THOSE?" my son has asked) or a brochureware web site.

The simple act of having a blog -- admittedly one that I invest a fair amount of energy, effort and passion into -- has provided me with credibility in ways I've not been able to accurately measure but experience almost daily. I don't even want to quantify it...instead I'm simply enjoying the acceleration I'm experiencing in connection with others and being in-the-game in so many different ways that my eclectic and multi-topic blog affords.

I would guess that 75% of the doors opened to me in the last six months came, in no small part, directly as a result of my having a blog in which I've invested. Clients have come on board because of it. People have made comments like, "Your writing is so clear and cogent" and "It's obvious that you "get it" so we wanted to talk to you" and other statements that make it crystal clear that we wouldn't have connected had it not been for my blog. Of course, it's not just the act of having a blog and slapping stuff up on it, but instead investing enough in it so it says who you are, how you think, and gives a glimpse in to your personal value proposition.

By the way, what is your personal value proposition? Or...what do you intend it to be? It's imperative that you focus on a category or an area that you know, love, are passionate about, or is in an area in which you are eagerly learning.

Here are some examples of how my blog has augmented, enhanced and accelerated my involvement in next generation internet work and why I get so adamant that certain people I know blog:

• Connected me to people in 14 countries. These folks are involved in multiple different aspects of "Web 2.0", next generation internet, and figuring out new ways to connect human consciousness and the relationships and dialogues have proven to be absolutely invaluable (and fun too!)

• Two clients told me specifically that the key to my being hired was my blog and what it contained (it was that straightforward). Three potential others came to me as a direct result of someone else pointing them at my blog and, in turn, them contacting me to discuss their needs and how I might help

• I've coached, mentored and encouraged people all over the US who are starting nextgen internet-based businesses, involved in figuring something out for their organization, or just trying to determine what role they should play in this whole space

• Most importantly, my musings and posts have connected me with other like-minded people. People who are a helluva lot smarter and more learned in some area than I am. But rather than have this be bothersome or cause me to feel inferior in some way, it's been unbelievably energizing. Why? Because I believe there are no experts...just someone that knows more at some given point in time. We're all connected and clustering with others with differing perspectives which can inform, extend, enhance or materially change what each of us is doing to move the world forward. The kicker? Every conversation and connection I'm involved in usually sees me ending up learning more from the other person then I give to them. How delightful is that?

• Lastly, in a bizarre sort of way it's really helped me bring clarity to the dots I'm connecting. Before I 'publish' something on my blog, I make sure that I'm brief and as articulate as time allows...yet my arguments or positions are ones that I've thought-through and researched enough to be comfortable to then write the post.

Blogging isn't a silver bullet. There's no magic fairy dust that can be sprinkled over your computer to make your blog worthwhile for others to read. But why are you here? What's your purpose? What are your strengths? Your passions? Seize something, build a blog around it and create a value proposition around it...and you. Blogging is but one way to make that value prop a reality (yep...there are lots of others. Vlogging, podcasting, web assets, social networks/hubs, etc. But blogging is so dang simple and can deliver incredibly high value that it's sort of a no-brainer to deliver).

Right now, today, this moment, is all that we get. Not some future point. What are you doing right now to think, dream, and act upon your own personal value proposition and what you can uniquely deliver that the world really needs?

Web 2.0 and "the new" innovation imperative

After experiencing PeopleAggregator (which, BTW, seems to have been dubbed "PeepAgg") off-n-on for the last 24 hours, I was pleased by how it's been architected to embrace and extend open standards, open formats and "hey...take your data with you if you don't like us" approach.

Then this morning I was talking to someone about PeepAgg and extending it. The discussion came around to Typepad widgets and  a site that does widget aggregation for blogs, web sites, MySpace, etc., and how cool it was to be able to snag and place these widgets to add all kinds of functionality to what we each offer.

Then I had an "aha!" and a realization that's obviously hit many others but finally sunk in to my thick skull: to innovative today doesn't mean following the lead of Microsoft, Apple, IBM or any other monolithic computing leader AT ALL...but rather creating and innovating offerings that can be leveraged and consumed by lots and lots of other offerings and Web 2.0 sites!

Love the widget concept. They're truly unique little code snippets that people understand, can copy-n-paste on to their own blog or site, and provide functionality that are truly useful.

But like Marc Canter's old blog that had tons of widgets on it and took FOREVER TO LOAD (I once called him the poster child for Web 2.0 latency), I fear that self-contained widgets (that pull data from the same site vs. grabbing stuff that lives elsewhere on the internet hosted elsewhere) will make loading and surfing blogs a horrible experience.

Unfortunately most people don't even think about page optimization, latency, file sizes or any of the other things that provide people with a halfway decent experience. Will any of the blogging or web hosting providers build-in load time analytic tools? I once had an executive at a hoster test my blog page and found it was 2.7MB's! (I use lots of images, grab stuff from Amazon, etc.). Of course, most of the stuff on my own blog that I preview loads once, is cached locally, so it never seems that bad to me. I am now ALOT more aware and ensure that images are scrunched down as much as possible in file size so I can optimize my blog. Most people are clueless about what to do.

Maybe bandwidth will keep increasing so this will become a moot point...or maybe it already is. What's your experience?

Marc Canter's People Aggregator

Marc Canter's Broadband Mechanics has debuted the People Aggregator (currently in private alpha). Normally I wouldn't blog about a private alpha, but there were zero restrictions on the invite so I assume that it's OK since embargos are usually very explicit.

First off, this is one of the most ambitious Web application projects that I've ever seen or experienced. Finding what it DOESN'T do is more challenging than experiencing all that it does!

Everything on this site is focused on the user. Not on the content...but the human being and our connection to others. It's focus is on connecting people to others while facilitating a rich publishing environment for aggregating disparate data about oneself, and then connecting to others by joining or building ones own community or network.

Just for grins, I just started a group (Next Generation Internet). Like the screenshot shows, I can create or join a network; build a community; or connect a community. THIS IS KEY since I have multiple affinities right now: I'm interested in Web 2.0, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source software, wiki's in particular, politics, social shifts (demography, entrepreneurship/capital, et al), and many others. In theory I can have a circle of connectedness here and if I choose not to play in full...I can connect outside of it.

Here are just a few of the intriguing aspects of PeopleAggregator:

• MyPage: The usual profile stuff (general, personal, professional info) along with a blog posting capability. I can also upload media or -- since file size is limited -- I can put in a URL pointing to the file elsewhere! This is fabulous since I store stuff on high bandwidth/high storage providers so I can point to it and it also minimizes the I.T. demands for PeopleAggregator
• Blog search: Simple searching inside of other's blog posts
• Gallery: images, audio and video posted by others (which I can aggregate or delete from my stuff)
• People: A way to find people in the site. Lots of search fields pre-defined
• Groups: Just what you think though it's *very* easy to set one up or join one
• Networks: I kind of don't get this yet. Maybe join a network of people with similiar affinities? If so, I want to be with the cool, popular, rich people please. ;-)

It's pretty clear that Canter has embraced everything open: standards, the Creative Commons, structured blogging, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tagging and more. As he states on his Broadband Mechanics site:

Centralized social networks continue the notion of data silos, locking up end-users into a proprietary walled garden.  The PeopleAggregator is a social network web service that will be used to inter-connect the world’s social networks – together.   

We can only do that by opening up and giving away our APIs and techniques for doing so. So instead of a single social network with 10,000,000 people – we see 10M social networks – with 25-150 people in them.  This vision of distributed, meshed universe of networks is what PeopleAggregator is all about.

One can come to the PeopleAggregator site and join a network we’re hosting there or create their own network and get their friends and family to join it.  We’ll host that network for free – as long as they have under >128 members.  Over <128 – we’ll add ads to the network – or one can pay to remove the ads ($10 a month.)  We’ll also offer downloads of the system, so one can set up their own ‘meta-network’ of networks. This code is open source and free to use for everybody BUT commercial interests. these ‘capitalists’.

This is an awe-inspiring effort -- especially since Marc totally gets it that it's about interconnectedness and NOT trying to create the be all, end all site that does everything. Even if you're only a casual student of the acceleration of the participation culture that's spawned blogging, podcasting, vlogging, MySpace, and all the other so-called Web 2.0 applications (e.g., lists here, here, here and here) then you're gonna want to finagle an invitation from someone who is in the private alpha or certainly sign up once this bad-boy is public -- and get in on the fun.

NOTE: Just came across this on Broadband Mechanics site. It pitches PeopleAggregator for different audiences.

Are Virtual Worlds the Future of Work? Collaboration? Play?

While the Collaborative Technologies Conference was quite good and virtual worlds were touched upon, much of it felt staid and, dare I say, old? Mainly this occurred because of how much I've learned, understand and have seen in this space...and I'm most comfortable living and thinking in a strategic place so am usually two or three years out in the future with respect to technology and its uses.

What I'm realizing is that the participatory culture of which I've written extensively (in the search box at the upper right of my blog just type in "participation culture" to view previous posts) is accelerating demand for a whole host of new approaches and technologies. Blogging, podcasting, vlogging, MySpace, TagWorld, LinkedIn, and all the other ways to connect people are causing me to re-evaluate and re-think many of my assumptions about how virtual connections should work.

Using flat, two dimensional collaboration offerings are powerful and all of the new, Web 2.0-ish providers Foldera, Central Desktop or even Basecamp are providing extraordinarily easy to use, centralized and at-your-fingertips products which anyone who has mastered a mouse can access. For the next several years, these types of offerings will be THE way most people collaborate.

When I started evangelizing blogging and podcasting a couple of years ago to "C" level executives, they looked at me like I had three heads...until articles about it hit the cover of Business Week and within the pages of Forbes. Next up came my casual mentions of virtual worlds. Again, I could just see the bemused looks on their faces...again until Business Week had a major cover story just a few weeks ago.

Just like real life, Second Life is hosting parties, sexfests, but most germane to this blog are the collaborations, meetings and meetups that are occurring.  Stanford Law Professor, Larry Lessig lectured. Cory Doctorow held his book launch party "in world". This SL blog lists 3-5 events every week.

Blogs like 3PointD, Collaborative Strategies,  and someone (Robin Good) who watches this space and has an intriguing article here. Even a former audio/videoblogging guy, Eric Rice, has really invested in Second Life and the virtual space.

All this said, I have a challenge getting my clients up-to-speed with wiki's, content management and forums...let alone suggesting they buy an island in SL and build a virtual collaborative space! Plus, if you look at my avatar (Mojo Fisher), it'd be pretty hard to take me seriously if I was holding a business meeting of some kind in world (though I could dress him up in a suit, shave those sideburns, and get rid of the skin tight trousers).

People have been experimenting with mapping faces onto their avatars (pics of their actual faces). Audio and even video is being delivered (I've seen faux TV shows on TV's, a drive-in movie theater under construction, and advertisers are paying to on signage and other locations in popular spaces in-world). So you can see the potential once a few things occur:

1. Resolution gets better. While phenomenal right now, the rendering speed, texture maps and quality of movement (dependent upon internet speed, graphics rendering in your computer, and the server speeds at Linden Labs, creators of SL) will enhance and make the experience incredibly good
2. Voice over IP. Once I can actually talk to someone vs. typing...it will be close to real-time communication
3. A way to offer guest accounts that provide base-case avatars and an easy way for someone to try out SL, attend an event or gathering, without having to invest alot of time in building the avatar and figuring out the rules of the world.

Of course, alot of this is a non-issue with younger, completely tech savvy folks who are incredibly comfortable with virtual spaces and online behaviors. As bandwidth, computing horsepower, and system efficiencies accelerate (and you know they will!), I'm already convinced that virtual spaces will be the work, collaboration and play spaces of tomorrow.

Collaborative Technologies Conference: Day 3

This morning was my session on "Business Continuity and Collaboration" (Powerpoint delivered as PDF here). My mandate was to lead an open discussion about an admittedly very deep and broad topic and be a "conversation starter." There was alot of conversation and people really participated.

My objective was to stimulate conversation and provide people with a perspective that BOTH business continuity and collaboration could be viewed as one-and-the-same (where it comes to human interactions and performance support). Pretty tough to cover in 45 minutes, but still the dialogue was refreshing and people made it clear to me that these two areas by necessity required significantly deeper examination and thought.

After my session, I stuck around to listen to Ken Thompson. If you read my blog, you'll recall that I stumbled across Ken's Bioteam blog as I've been seeking thought leaders surrounding next generation community, affinities, clustering, smart mobs, or however you care to term the accelerating global consciousness, connectedness and culture of participation that's emerged.

Ken was delightful and more informative than I could've imagined. In fact, I went to Jen Pahlka (the woman who runs the conference) and recommended Ken as someone who should've been one of the plenary speakers and would make a great one next time around. He was that interesting, his perspective that fresh, and was quite intellectually stimulating to boot.

Ken's study of biological behaviors (ants, bees, mimicry, all things natural) point the way to thinking about teaming, messaging and behaviors in new ways. He also has developed a swarming, hosted messaging application in beta called Swarm-It, that I'm really keen on using. Why? As Ken described it and the possibilities of mass messaging that this "engine" would enable, I could feel the synapses in my brain begin to fire and the possibilities and opportunities for enhanced communications leapt into view. Expect big things from the approach he's driving swarm messaging.

Unfortunately I had to fly home today so missed a few must-see sessions. Overall, the conference was a home run and well worth my investment of time, money and energy.

Collaborative Technologies Conference: Day 2

My reaction to yesterday and today is that my Amazon purchases are going to leap after this conference...there are about five books I'm going to buy based on people I've been exposed to here.

One thing that has been delightful about being here is how much thought leadership can influence, inform and guide ones thinking. It sure has for me. So much of what I'm involved in centers around materially changing human engagement in a virtual way: collaborating online, synchronous and asynchronous communication (online hubs for managing projects, having discussions, jointly working on tasks) and perspectives gained here are being added to many, many others. All of this input is giving me a depth, texture and nuanced feel for what online offerings must deliver in order to achieve success with an acceleratingly diverse set of users.

Linda Stone kicked today off with her talk on continuous partial attention. I always find it useful to hear this again...probably because I've always paid partial attention to her talk in the past.  ;-)

Stowe Boyd, John Beck (author, Got Game) and Jim Ware, Exec Producer Work Design Collaborative.

Sound bites from these guys (look at their presentations to view more). Jim was up first and mentioned:

• Discussed the shifts in the US in demographics. By 2010, there will be 10 million jobs unfilled
• The type of worker is shifting. The emergent workers (youth with new organizational and work attitudes) will be >70% of the work force by 2007
• By 2006, 50% of US Federal government workers are eligible for retirement
• Be prepared for major talent shortages
• Learn to manage generational diversity
• Become a next generation company.

Next up was the passionate, ebullient and engaging John Beck...

Collaborative Technologies Conference

Out at the Collaborative Technologies Conference this week (speaking Thursday morning) and it's been a great event thus far. Hats off to Jennifer Pahlka and crew who've pulled it off while making it seem effortless. What is down below is certainly no recap (the other three speakers were quite good) but the first person hit me since I view the world from a more global, holistic viewpoint and appreciated the first speaker's perspective most.

This morning's first speaker was John Seely Brown. His central theme was the macro nature of computer mediated networks and their effects but he, like many speakers today, clearly emphasized the fact that humans are the collaborators and it's not just about technology.

What was amazing was his story of Li & Fung. This firm has a loosely coupled network of 7,500 suppliers. It's a collaborative, relationship-based, feedback-looped network that's provided them with one helluva competitive advantage (even thinking about managing such a network and its interconnections made my eyes glaze over).

Interesting points:

• The world may becoming flat...but it's actually "spiky". The competitive future is to those that can identify unique differentiators by partners and embrace them.
• Tools: must be simple! People need simple. Can't be any extra work.
• THE most important element in videoconferencing is *eye contact*. People need to see that others are engaged with them and it's eye contact that does it.
• It is possible now to have virtual connections be better than being there in person
• Meetings are just part of collaboration.
• Web 2.0 is a participatory medium (damn...that's one of my slides for Thursday!)
• Discussed Second Life. You talkin' collaboration? What's more collaborative than being in an immersive environment?
• An Accelerating Confluence. Brown said we're on the cusp of a 100 fold change in "punctuated evolution" disrupting Moore's Law! Mainly due to commodization of hardware and software.

I was also delighted to connect up with the guys from Foldera (Richard Lusk, Oliver Starr, Jnan Dash and a new addition to the team, Marc Orchant). Finally got a full, hour long demo of the product from Marc and it's everything I'd hoped it would be. Looks like I'll be getting credentials in the next several days and plan on *really* putting it through its paces.

After meeting with Marc, I felt like I'd known him for years. Same with Richard though 20 years seems like a better description. Though it's all about the product, this team's intensity, passion, enthusiasm and overwhelming interest and desire to engage with *anyone* makes it seem almost as thought they're willing Foldera toward success. Any investor will tell you that the hallmark of a winning leadership team is full engagement, willingness to listen (yet still overcoming objections), being open to modification and course changes, and constantly scanning for opportunities. These folks have this in spades.

As always happens to me, events like these energize me. Hearing people like Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps from NetAge talk collaboration, networking and virtual teaming -- and realizing that they're the people I've been looking for as I'm exploring in all my social/clustering/teaming posts written previously -- is why venues like these are so important...virtual worlds, collaboration or not.

Return on my blogging investment

Nope. There isn't a "hard ROI" on my blogging investment...but there sure has been a soft one! Let me explain.

In 2004 I decided to jump into blogging feet first not knowing if there were rocks six inches underwater (thus why not head first!) or if it was 50 feet deep. Turns out it was a hundred feet deep and -- as a former high school swimmer and later a scuba diver -- knew that I could handle it regardless of depth.

Though many others had seen it a long time before I had, there was a knowing that this thing (blogging as part of a larger participatory culture who were into vlogging, podcasting, gaming, social connections, et al) was part of the biggest shift in human communications I was going to see in my lifetime. I felt absolutely compelled to be on the field vs. sitting in the stands like I had during the first phase of the internet.

I got crap from buddies. Quizzical looks from partners and colleagues when I tried to describe what it was and why I'd invest the time in it. Queries from my bride like, "So...*why* are you spending so much time blogging?"

Part of my desire to blog (and later to podcast) was to live it, understand it from the inside out, and play. Looking back over my career, I've often wondered what would've happened had I followed my heart and passion into journalism or broadcasting. A tiny part of me felt fulfillment from participating and being in the game.

Then the soft returns started. People started reading and referring to my blog. Others (at the "C" level) took my phone calls since I could pitch 'em by phone or email and point them to my blog. The result was, "Hmm...this is a guy that "gets it"," and they'd talk to me. My personal branding was out there since the essence of Steve Borsch came through much more so than a resume, a proposal, a phone call or other usual methods of connecting with others. I've learned a ton about the participatory culture in all its phases. The infrastructure. The opportunities and possibilities. The future.

As I've accelerated off on my own working closely with entrepreneurs, small and some midsize businesses over next generation internet technologies and the explosion of ways to connect and collaborate with others, my blog has been my calling card. It's been my "street cred", my way to engage in conversation and a powerful way to toss my consciousness out there and connect with others thinking many of the same thoughts. There is no way I'd be doing what I'm doing, connecting with so many clients, if it weren't for my blog.

Open Source Projects Too Hard to Use? How About Mashed-Up Web 2.0 Apps?

You know the old adage about starting a successful enterprise: find a need and fill it. There's a need to be filled that many people recognize...but it's currently too hard for the needy to figure out how fill it themselves, and no one else is filling it.

I'm speaking about the need entrepreneurs, small businesspeople, non-profit organizations and others have for a Web asset that supports their business or organizational requirements. No...I'm not talking about yet another brochureware web site or simple ecommerce, but something that meets the demands, higher expectations and increasingly global reach of an accelerating participatory culture.

In an age of internet ubiquity and a flat world, people all over the globe are accessing, participating, creating, clustering with others, learning, raising their awareness, and increasingly demand a level of interaction that is making a Web asset a business and organizational imperative. Just look at the success of MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo's offerings, all the Web 2.0 offerings and more to get a sense of what's happening.

Over the last six months, I've been working with multiple different groups, entrepreneurs, disrupted status quo companies, all of whom have a vague sense that the world is changing beneath their feet...but are unsure what's going on and how to address it. These folks have a knowing that they need:

• A multi-author, workflow-enabled, content management system
• A blog to engage with their constituents, be transparent and open themselves
• Forums to engage, support and augment interactions with their customers and learn from online discussions
• Ecommerce that facilitates digital downloading of their intellectual capital instead of just the buying and shipping of atoms in boxes
• Collaboration for project/task management, shared calendar, and more.

"But wait!" you say. "There are open source and Web 2.0 offerings that meet those needs." Yeah...but stop into any office building and ask a small, ten person firm what they have for a Web asset and I'll bet you find their internet presence woefully inadequate.

New Domain Name Pointed Here...

Michael Sampson, VP of Global Word of Mouth Marketing at Foldera, was gracious enough to suggest I map a domain name to my blog (vs. "borsch.typepad.com") and even did a lookup to see if steveborsch.com might be available (it was).

That was enough incentive. I registered a new domain, mapped it to this Typepad blog, and it's set. The new domain is www.iConnectDots.com which is a bit more fitting than my last name as a subdomain on some hosted provider, heh?

Thanks Michael.

Verizon Responds: Tells You and I To Go Pound Sand

Verizon Wireless has responded to my post and subsequent executive email about their very inappropriate appendage stuck on to every image or video message. By the way, to see how many messages are already out there, look here at Technorati and here on Google's blog search. Again, this currently is less than 20,000 posts which is a nit in terms of the millions of blog posts (and the number of emails sent with this appendage are unknown) but mark my words: this will create a hue-and-cry amongst bloggers within the next six months as it renders the smartphone's camera and video capability undesirable.

Take a look at the letter and see for yourself, but basically Verizon Wireless said "we'll try" during a system upgrade "next year." Remember, Verizon is interested in maximizing revenue and don't care what you and I want to do with their service as long as people keep buying and using minutes. For example, the appendage they stick on that message is roughly 4 kilobytes. There's undoubtedly some spreadsheet jockey that's plugged in that 4kb times the number of messages and has worked out the revenue possibilities of that extra payload attached to every multimedia message. So until people get pissed and make it known how upset they are, Verizon Wireless has no incentive to change.

It should be noted that I fully expected this outcome when contacted by Verizon Wireless Executive Relations as I've played executive roles myself. This is standard operating procedure by executive staff's to have people to "just handle it" and placate the voices in the wilderness. The kicker? Based on all the feedback I've received on these posts, there are alot of people as Verizon customers who have exactly the same thoughts and, unfortunately for Verizon, they'll wait until the negative buzz reaches a crescendo before putting a spin on it and handling it further. Also, the blogosphere is materially changing conversational marketing and these things don't just dissolve into the ether.

I should also note that SixApart (owners of my blog host Typepad) has acquired Splashblog and they strip out the offending code which is a workaround for blog posting (but not email). Unfortunately they offer ZERO support for Splashblog and I can't get the "Post to Remote Blog" to work.

Rich multimedia PDF's with Flash

For several years, my wife's business (trend forecasting for the home furnishings industry) has been delivering PDF ebooks* for her market along with her core newsletter, The Trend Curve(tm). They've been remarkably successful and her customers have repeatedly informed her about how wonderful it is (as one use) to be able to get in a conference room, project the ebook up and have a mass meeting to go over and discuss the trends with an entire team.

Though interactive with links, I (as her one-man technoweenie advisory board) have resisted adding richer media to the PDF's due to learning curves and other issues. Primarily this reluctance has manifested in me since it's amazing how many support calls her staff receives (though still a pretty small number) come in from people whose OS "associations" are incorrect and when they double-click on the PDF ebook it opens in Notepad or some such other application! They have no clue on how to re-associate PDF to Acrobat Reader...so you can imagine how this less sophisticated audience would do if they needed to deal with current versions of Quicktime, Windows Media or some such other install.

As such, I've been reading John Nack's blog (he's with Adobe) and trying to stay up on what's happening with Project Apollo -- which I believe is going to vault the PDF container forward by years and I can't wait! Though today there are ways to add Flash to PDF, it is not optimal nor are the tools there for most Quark or InDesign page layout or prepress folks to easily deal with richer media and Flash specifically.

A rich media container holds the promise of providing content creators with a medium to deliver significantly enhanced and more valuable products. This was certainly behind Adobe's $3.4B acquisition of Macromedia as well as the upcoming battle-of-the-titans (Adobe and Microsoft) when it comes to rich internet application user interface delivery...which is another post unto itself since it will be such a huge accelerator of next generation internet applications.

*I've been asked, "Do you use Digital Rights Management (DRM) with your ebooks?" The answer is "no" but with this qualifier: since most of these Trend Albums(tm) she produces contain roughly 125, 300dpi images (so you can zoom into them to see detail), the resulting PDF is 200MB's or so. This alone minimizes the ability of people to email it around (most corporate email servers limit attachments to 5-10MB's) and it seems only the most sophisticated users understand -- or want to take the time and hold the risk -- to copy and move a file this size to others.

Treo 700p as Bluetooth, High Speed Modem

Tonight my power went out just as I had to use my computer and get on the 'net. Pretty tough to do when the cable modem, Wifi connection and computer won't work!

Then I remembered my week old Palm Treo 700p connected to the high speed Verizon EVDO network. I'd already set up my Powerbook and it was literally clicking once on the Internet Connect icon now in my dock, clicking "connect" and I was on the 'net in about 20 seconds (Jason O'Grady has a nice writeup on how easy it is to setup a connection here).

Though my house sits in a slight valley and cell connections from all providers are two bars at best...I still had nearly 300kbps down and 85kbps up in speed (normal speeds in "five bar" areas via Bluetooth so far is nearly 500kbps down and 190kbps-ish up...but there aren't Mac drivers for the apparently faster USB cabled connection so I'm forced to use Bluetooth -- but the speeds are still amazing).

It was rather amusing to hear my 11 year old son say, "Is that ALL THE FASTER IT'LL GO DAD!?!" as though DSL-like speeds are slow. I tried to tell him about how cool it was years ago to buy a 56k modem, later to get the incredibly speedy 128kbps ISDN in the early 90's, and then finally cable in 2000. He has no frame of reference and doesn't understand why connectivity isn't ubiquitous (and often asks why he can't connect on the laptop while we're in the car). THAT level of ubiquity of the internet is the expectation of our next market, by the way.

John C. Dvorak & Ann Coulter: Separated at Birth?

Were John C. Dvorak and Ann Coulter separated at birth? Yeah I know, they don't look anything alike (or do they? Hmm....) but rather it's the recent revelation about Dvorak's tweaking of the Mac community (Dave Winer & Robert Scoble mentions) and Ann Coulter's recent slam of 9/11 widows which made me stop, think and realize there was a commonality between the two of them.

Dvorak is purposeful about his batting-the-bee-hive of Mac users to get 'em riled up and swarming. They come after him ready to sting. He knows (and anyone else who thinks critically) that this tweaking spikes attention which it does. He plays the Mac market like a fiddle (vs. a violin which would indicate he makes music). Drawing attention gets people to read his column which, in turn, helps his employer sell advertising, helps him get attention for other endeavors, yadda-yadda-yadda.

Same thing with Coulter: she wants to sell books. Hitting a bee hive or scratching on a fiddle doesn't adequately express what Coulter does. Her manipulation of those left of center politically is so crass, so pornographic, and so hate filled that I'm still amazed anyone falls for it (and probably isn't very safe. Luckily for Dvorak, there are probably fewer nuts in the Mac community and even nuts probably suspect he's tweaking 'em). For Coulter, she knows that her purposeful and outrageous statements get people's attention.

As the world of content accelerates into one where The Long Tail provides each person with what they're interested in, there's no question we'll see an increase in manipulation as traditional media continues to lose market share.

Though I understand why they do it, both Dvorak and Coulter's behavior doesn't do anything positive, nor does it create a climate for discourse about stuff that truly matters.

TV in the palm of your hand...

The news today that CBS is the last major TV network to offer its evening programs on iTunes (which sells about 1 million videos a week) joining ABC, NBC and Fox in this new distribution medium for programming made me think...again...about how things have changed.

It seems like such a short time ago that the primary electronic medium drawing our attention was radio...which was then eclipsed by TV. As I grew up, I spent hours every day in front of the tube -- similiar to how my son invests *his* time in video gaming or on the computer -- and today I barely turn the thing on unless it's to watch a DVRecorded show.

Now I'm ripping DVD's on to my iPod (shhh...it's only for me and I've done two for when I travel...and this is fair use) and I watch stuff in chunks when I've got down time in an airport or some other place where I'm waiting (though listening to podcasts takes up most of those moments). My brain synapses fire like mad when I'm free-associating on the internet...and find that I love the learning and input that goes along with feeding my brain in this manner.

Still, I get nostalgic for what was. In Minnesota, there is a museum dedicated to radio and television called the Pavek Museum and it's a delight to go there and remember and see what these mediums were like at the beginning. This great resource also holds special significance for anyone who has grown up in the Twin Cities since there is so much about local TV personalities (whom I watched as I grew up) and it's a kick to see old videos, gear, sets and biographies.

What will our kids be nostalgic about? Halo2? That quaint little virtual world Second Life which can't hold-a-candle to MegaWorld in 2025? Those silly little NintendoDS or PSP handhelds vs. BrainConnector2050?

Social Innovation Thought Leadership

As connections to others (and to knowledge and perspective) accelerates due to global internet connectivity, my eyes have been opened and I'm constantly scanning for dots to inform, guide, engage, educate and to stimulate my intellect -- and to ultimately connect.

One such dot hit me while reading Jeff Clavier's post that the Stanford Center for Social Innovation (SCSI) podcast 'channel' is debuting tonight on Doug Kaye's Conversation Networks' Social Innovation Conversations channel.

Big ideas, important research, thought leaders, conversation, debate, teaching and action is the focus of SCSI and much of this will undoubtedly emerge through the content delivered by the Social Innovation Conversations (and other venues). As SCSI states on their About page:

"Through research, teaching and engagement, CSI works with socially concerned leaders and their organizations to confront difficult challenges. The Center leverages Stanford's knowledge, expertise and networks, bringing community leaders together with our faculty, alumni and students to illuminate and address social problems. The Center undertakes an integrated set of activities designed to enhance the leadership, management, and organizational capacity of individuals and organizations who strive to create social and environmental value."

Vision, knowledge and conversation is interesting but meaningless without action which begs the question: Why should you care?

Email to Verizon Wireless

A surprising number of people contacted me to ask who I intended to write to at Verizon in an attempt to kickstart a dialogue about the issue of them slapping a goofy advertising/Quicktime appendage to every MMS message...an appendage that cannot be turned off.

As you know, pinging any leader at any large company requires patience and ferreting out emails, but I've found going after people in public, media or press relations is usually a good idea as these people "get it" when it comes to negative buzz. If the buzz reaches a cacophony, then it'll get to the right executives.

So here are the folks (and the areas for which they're responsible) I sent the note to this past weekend and the email itself:

Handsets, Product Distribution, Marketing
Brenda Raney
908-306-4834
Brenda.Raney@VerizonWireless.com

Customer Experience, Information Technology, Business Continuity
Tom Pica
908-306-4385
Thomas.Pica@VerizonWireless.com

Public Policy and Regulatory Affairs; Wireless Multimedia, Data and Internet
Jeffrey Nelson
908-306-4824
Jeffrey.Nelson@VerizonWireless.com

Corporate Strategy, Policy
Jim Gerace
908-559-7508
James.Gerace@VerizonWireless.com

Ms. Raney, Messrs. Pica, Nelson and Gerace,

As a brand new customer who was initially delighted by Verizon Wireless, I must inform you of my profound disappointment over something you're doing that agitated me so greatly I took the opportunity to expose it to my widely read tech blog. The issue? Your voluminous appendage of content to the end of every MMS message which cannot be manipulated, managed or turned off by your customer.

My firm is focused on Web 2.0, the emerging participatory internet culture (blogging, podcasting, vlogging, et al) and the rise of online community. It is therefore so startlingly obvious to me that catering to the current and accelerating class of users creating digital content is critical to the adoption and rising use of your profitable, high speed network and its ability to handle significant amounts of data traffic. I'd assume you are interested in leveraging the considerable investment made in EVDO (as well as future network expansion) and catering to this class of user is key to market penetration as well as current and future customer loyalty. This one Verizon policy of appendage to every MMS message is one that will prove to be a deal-killer (or minimally a customer experience demoralizer) for the legions of us out here interested in increasing the efficacy of our communications via your mobile network.

ACTION: Please consider immediately providing tech savvy users (with appropriate warnings) with the ability to turn off the voluminous content slapped on to the end of every multimedia message sent via your network -- or completely eliminate said content.

If interested, feel free to read my blog post as it more cogently and clearly articulates my concern and argument: http://borsch.typepad.com/ctd/2006/06/verizon_doesnt_.html

Also, I'd be happy to discuss it live and you can reach me at one of the numbers below.

--
Steve Borsch
CEO
Marketing Directions, Inc.
<snip>

I'll let you know when (and God forbid...if) I'm contacted by anyone.

Verizon Doesn't Want You to Moblog

So Verizon invests in a high speed EVDO network and smartphones like the Palm Treo 700-series...devices with both cameras and video capability along with multimedia messaging services built-in.

They work...but Verizon has set it up so that you won't want to use the device for moblogging. For about two hours tonight I've been trying to figure out how to remove -- AT THE END OF EVERY TEST BLOG POST THAT I MADE WITH AN IMAGE, VIDEO OR AUDIO SENT FROM THE MESSAGING APP IN MY NEW TREO -- the following text:

To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime Player. Note: During the download process when asked to choose an installation type (Minimum, Recommended or Custom), select Minimum for faster download.

I tried Preference settings and anything I could find in an attempt to turn this off so as to be able to do a blog post with JUST THE CONTENT I WANT IN THE POST. Went to their site, Palm's site, read the manual, scoured the Web and was stumped. Oh yeah...I could somewhat understand this message being appended underneath a video, but an image? Also, the audio is a WAV file and Quicktime doesn't natively handle that methinks.

This is such a laughingly bonehead move on the part of Verizon that I couldn't believe that some bit couldn't be twiddled and this paragraph removed so I called into tech support. The technical support guy (and his supervisor) I talked with for 45 minutes were initially uncooperative and a bit hostile and then finally came around to my argument that:

• Verizon has invested heavily in the fastest high speed mobile network in the US. The whole point to the Treo and other multimedia capable phones is to pay and use them for data. Increasing demand for data use is driving the Verizon network and the company LOVES this because the users of these devices spend ALOT on data services instead of just small dollars on voice. This cheesey paragraph appended to EVERY message at the server level renders moblogging UNUSABLE...and this is THE key aspect of multimedia, mobile telephony devices!

• There are >37 million bloggers (according to Technorati), 50M+ MySpace users and every pundit predicts that the accelerating participatory culture will do nothing but grow. Seems like a viable market space to me and one that Verizon would do well not to upset.

• Look at Palm's web site about these devices and all the market spaces into which they're going. In particular, the white paper (PDF) about the Palm Connected Campus makes the argument that the exploding participatory culture (i.e., young people in college who are the current and future lifeblood of mobile networks like Verizon) demands always-on, always connected capability. These connected people want robust devices AND especially control over the look-n-feel of the content they deliver and don't want ads, appended technical stuff on their messages, or any other crap to ride along with what they're delivering.

My disappointment is exacerbated since I'd planned to moblog from trade shows and conferences I attend...but will either have to edit every post sent with a computer (so as to strip out the offending text) or just use a laptop itself to create the post and upload it. Sort of defeats the purpose of having a multimedia device and fast network don't ya think?

Yeah...this was a bit of a rant. The difference from a typical rant is that I'm one degree of separation away from leadership at Palm that I'll ensure hear this message and I'll politely encourage them to help their carrier colleagues follow their tag line, "We never stop working for you" and change this policy. I thought it would be useful to first post this so I could refer to it in ongoing and future communication.

Stay tuned and I'll let you know if they work for us...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE: Just sent myself an email and here is what is slapped on the bottom of EVERY multimedia message and, of course, it CANNOT BE TURNED OFF. The more I think about this...the angrier I get and Oliver at MobileCrunch had his hot button pushed at a Verizon retail store on a more trivial matter and blew up too. I've commented under that post and hope to bring this to his attention since the message appendage is far worse if placed in an email. Here's what is placed on each message:

This message was sent using PIX-FLIX Messaging service from Verizon Wireless! To learn how you can snap pictures with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getpix.

To learn how you can record videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getflix.

To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime� 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime� Player.  Note: During the download process when asked to choose an installation type (Minimum, Recommended or Custom), select Minimum for faster download.

To see for yourself that this is an emerging problem, just take this part of the phrase, "This message was sent using PIX-FLIX Messaging service" and put it in either Technorati or Google and search on it. You'll find Technorati shows 6,130 posts done with this appendage and Google has 9,930 results...so it's still early enough for Verizon to change this before it becomes too big of an issue with people moblogging.

Imagine if Typepad placed stuff on your paid-for blog like this informing people about all the players they had to use to view content (Windows Media, Quicktime, Flash, etc.) with links to all of them? Or if Yahoo Mail, Gmail, MSN and all others appended your communications? Or Adobe stuck stuff on the bottom of every PDF you produced? Microsoft placing advisory warnings on Word .doc's and spreadsheets? You get the point...

My new Palm Treo 700p

After being on a waiting list for several weeks, I took delivery of my new Palm Treo 700p Thursday. This is not a review, but instead are a few thoughts about this pretty nifty little device.

Why the 700p vs. the 700w (Windows version)? The ease-of-use with the PalmOS is significantly easier to use than the Windows Mobile version. One click to get email with the "p" vs. five on the "w" model is the difference between having the device be an accessory vs. a gadget requiring LOTS of effort to use.

I was initially agitated that the Verizon VZAccess was not available for the Mac. Arghh! was my initial reaction and knew that I'd be forced to boot up my PC to configure the device...though I use my Powermac as my main machine and all my contacts, calendar and other stuff is on that box...and my Powerbook was the device that I wanted to be able to connect to the 700p and use it as a modem to access the Verizon superfast EVDO network (Note: isn't it disappointing that Verizon is all too happy to sell someone $15 access to the network via the Treo, yet have zero support for the Mac?).

What ended up happening with getting access from my Powerbook was so laughingly simple that I didn't bother thinking about whether I'd have to wait for VZAccess (and rumors on the 'net indicate it probably will never come out anyway). Here's what I did:

a) Turned on Bluetooth on both the Treo and my Powerbook
b) Fired up Bluetooth Setup Assistant on the Powerbook and followed the instructions to discover my Treo
c) After handshaking and setup, I opened the app "Internet Connect"; selected "Bluetooth" and typed in:

- Telephone Number: *777
- Account Name: my_mobile_#@vzw3g.com
- Password: my_mobile_account_password

I was connected. Then yesterday I was leaving a client's session and needed to send a long email. After pulling into a parking lot, I connected up and achieved 521kbps downstream and 192kbps upstream! Yeah...it's not good for huge downloading/uploading, but I was *very* impressed and pleased with the speed.

Bluetooth is apparently slower than a USB-cabled connection so I may try the latter as well. No more dismay when at a coffee shop who doesn't have free Wifi or uses a provider other than mine. Same thing when sitting in an airport knowing that I'd have to pay $10 for the tiny amount of time I'd happen to have while waiting for a flight.

Oh yeah. The Treo is fun though there are lots of little gotchas that need improving. Still, it is THE most capable device of its type and I'm enjoying this smartphone.