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November 28, 2007
From Hip-Hop to Geek Wisdom
A couple of weeks ago I attended Advertising Age's The Idea Conference, the ad trade's respectable attempt to bring together a mash-up of interesting thinkers. The one day brain dump began with an exceptionally freestyle monologue by hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, the urban analogue to Richard Branson. Amid his ramblings on meditation, creativity, and name dropping some half dozen of his percolating new businesses (intriguing ones at that: i.e. a financial services company and bank card for the 70 million consumers who don't have bank accounts), he also dropped some street wisdom on how he's achieved maverick status:
"Speak with a new voice. My job is not to repeat."
"Every idea I've ever come up with, no one liked. Anything they did like I knew
was a bullshit idea."
"I have faith in silence. You ain't gonna get shit from the noise."
After Simmons came an impressive lineup ranging from Barry Diller to Jeffrey Hollender (founder of Seventh Generation) to the earnest Utah marketing dude from BlendTec, George Wright, who dreamed up the campy YouTube extreme blending viral sensation "Will It Blend?" (yes, some poor marketing chap in the audience actually donated his BlackBerry for a live blender obliteration, as the rest of the marketing folks in the audience drooled with envy).
Continue reading "From Hip-Hop to Geek Wisdom"
Posted by Danielle Sacks at 9:18 AM
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8 Comments
September 24, 2007
Momentum Growth Conference: Kayak Has Momentum and Your Vote.
The polls have closed and the clear winner is Kayak, the online travel search site.
In just two years, Kayak has emerged as a consumer favorite, and consistently receives high marks in travel site rankings.
And now, they'll be the opening panel of the Momentum Growth Conference produced by Dealmaker Media. I've been a huge fan of Kayak's co-founder Paul English since his Get Human days. Now, I'm looking forward to getting to know more about Kayak, why it's working and what's coming next.
Thanks to all who voted.
Join us on October 4th in Mountain View, CA:
The Momentum Growth Conference honors 15 industry leaders dominating the web. The companies who’ve been chosen have real customers, revenues, partnerships, and have seen significant traffic growth over the last 12-18 months.
See you next month...
Posted by Ellen McGirt at 3:33 PM
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September 14, 2007
Momentum Growth Conference: Help Me Pick The Next Facebook.
In case you haven’t noticed it’s startup fever back in the Bay Area/ Silicon Valley; my trusted sources tell me that they’re partying like it’s 1999 out there. Do you blame them? Many of the hottest young companies leading the web 2.0 trend today are based there - an interesting fact in and of itself – and according to Comscore web traffic rankings, these companies are gaining hyper speed traction. So what, you say? Well, what if you could identify the next break-out company of the year? Is there a company on the horizon as interesting and disruptive as Facebook?
Continue reading "Momentum Growth Conference: Help Me Pick The Next Facebook."
Posted by Ellen McGirt at 12:44 PM
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July 5, 2007
Fortune Favors the Responsible Biz
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Goldman Sachs, McKinsey and Company, and the United Nations put out reports today highlighting positive links between corporate responsibility and the bottom line. The three studies were presented in Geneva at a meeting hosted by the UN Global Compact, an association of UN agencies, companies, and other public and private groups that lobby for businesses to improve their human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption practices.
Some of the main takeaways:
Companies that are ahead of the curve when it comes to the environment, good governance and social responsibility performed about 25 percent better than the general stock market over the last couple of years, according to Goldman.
Over 90 percent of surveyed CEOs participating in the Global Compact said they're doing more now than they did five years ago to include those EGS concerns in their overall strategy and operations, McKinsey reported.
On the other hand, the follow-through tends to fall short: While 72 percent of CEOs said corporate responsibility should be "embedded fully into strategy and operations," only half think that's actually happening at their companies. When it comes to supply chains, almost 60 percent of execs said corporate responsibility should be embedded, but less than a third said that's a reality.
The whole report should be up in the next few days at the UN Global Compact website.
Posted by Elise Waxenberg at 4:05 PM
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June 21, 2007
PUSH the Future (4)
Fourth lesson from PUSH 2007
Traditional media are being replaced by…something
Want to know what life is like here in Traditional Media-Land (that would include newspapers, magazines, television news, radio)? Here's an executive summary, courtesy of Amy Mitchell of the Project for Excellence in Journalism:
--The news industry entering a phase based on diminished capacity. News organizations reducing ambitions, branding and organizing around specialties.
--The old economic model is crumbling. The circle of advertisers, audiences, outlets, is being broken up. And advertisers more dissatisfied with traditional dynamic and results.
--Web journalism is doing more to develop immediacy, brand, and customization. But there's no clear model of what works, economically or otherwise. All the talk is about user-generated content, but there’s no focus on how money will be made.
--Solid non-traditional competition is emerging, operating at much lower cost than traditional media.
Sounds fun, huh?
Posted by Keith Hammonds at 4:20 PM
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June 20, 2007
PUSH the Future (3)
Third lesson from PUSH 2007:
Some problems can’t be solved. Period.
"I'll lay it out: There is no hope for peace between Israel and Palestine." Michael Barnett of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs didn't pull punches. "There is no hope for a negotiated settlement. Nothing good is going to happen. In fact, disaster is looming. And if you buy that, then you have to ask, what comes next? What do you do when there are no prospects for peace?"
Uh, wow. No hope. It was a shocking moment at last week's PUSH 2007 conference. As Americans, as human beings, we're so unaccustomed to believing that of anything. We embrace hope; we can fix anything. That may be our national competitive advantage, ultimately—our belief that with creativity, ingenuity, and passion, no problem is beyond hope.
Barnett ticked people at PUSH off, even though his facts were inarguable (and all the more chilling in the wake of this week's insanity with Hamas and Fatah). But this was part of the day's message, an echo of Clyde Prestowitz's prediction of a world without America at its center: In this increasingly more complex world, some things will just turn out badly. Barnett thinks Israel and Palestine could end with escalating extremism and mass ethnic cleansing; or an end to Israeli democracy; or (least likely) growing Palestinian strength that forces an integrated, binational state.
And the United States likely won't have much to do with the outcome. "Every single door we think is open to us," Barnett said, "is, in fact, a dead end."
Posted by Keith Hammonds at 5:30 PM
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PUSH the Future (2)
Second lesson from PUSH 2007:
The energy problem is bigger than you thought.
James Kakalios is famous (well, anyway, he's the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question) for calculating the force needed to actually "leap over the Empire State Building in a single bound." He is a professor at the University of Minnesota who wrote "The Physics of Superheroes," which considers cartoon superheroes from the standpoint of physics.
But Kakalios is also an actual physicist, a solid-state experimentalist who has worked to improve the conductive properties of amorphous semiconductors for solar power applications. And other cool stuff. Here's how he thinks about the world’s energy crisis:
First, it is a crisis. World oil reserves will be exhausted within a single generation; we’re right at the peak of oil production. Meanwhile, world energy consumption is predicted to increase by 50% in next 20 years; China is adding the equivalent of the United Kingdom's energy demand every year. The problem isn't just about oil; if all the world's power plants were nuclear, our supply of uranium would be exhausted in 10 years. Plus, atmospheric CO2 levels are the highest recorded in 400,000 years. Methane and carbon fluoride also increasing, and that may be worse.
Posted by Keith Hammonds at 5:19 PM
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PUSH the Future
I'm back from the 2007 PUSH conference in Minneapolis. PUSH, an annual event in its fifth year, is sort of what Fast Company would be if we were a floor show instead of a magazine (which is why we're a sponsor): It brings together voices from economics, social policy, technology, demography, art, and design to construct a window on the future of work, business, and society.
PUSH is essentially an upbeat celebration of that future, replete with song and dance and passion. But it's not naïve—and the picture of our future that emerged at PUSH '07 was complex, daunting, and yeah, kinda scary. Over a few of these blog entries, I'm going to give you the headlines:
1. America is no longer the center of the universe.
That's not a terribly new idea—but it's somewhat shocking to hear it embraced by a guy who used to be Ronald Reagan’s secretary of commerce. Clyde Prestowitz advises Presidents and CEOs alike on the state of the world, and he seems to revel in the role of The Republican Who Speaks His Mind. And what’s on his mind is this:
Posted by Keith Hammonds at 5:10 PM
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June 13, 2007
Design in Dubai: Authenticity Angst
It's true what you've read: Dubai is like no other place on earth. I had a wonderful time. But I won’t be one of those folks urging vacationers to check out the all-inclusive deals on Travelocity.
For one thing, for six months out of the year, the place pretty much uninhabitable. In late May, it ranged from 102 to 104 degrees during the day. From June through November, the heat is nuclear. Not just hot as hell, but humid as a jungle --- an interesting trick, considering it’s desert as far as the eye can see.
How bad is it? The Indians and Philippinos were complaining. Folks who can afford it, skip town. The hotels’ occupancy drops precipitously. Busboys take holidays back to Romania and Goa.
And for another month, Ramadan pretty much shuts down the town. “My friends were horrified,” said one British publisher, whose guests forgot to check their holiday calendars before booking a flight. “They couldn’t even be seen drinking a bottle of water in their cars without getting into trouble.” Hard to have a vacation when all the fun stuff --- like eating and drinking – can only happen after sundown.
But, I hear, the place is quite lovely during the remaining months. The beaches are superb. The water is warm, and the hotels are first rate. I’ve never experienced such consistently warm and attentive customer service, from waiters to shuttle bus drivers to customs officers (who actually make jokes and welcome you to their country!) And they’re not just grubbing for tips, which seem to be in short supply.
They say the Emiratis are a naturally hospitable people. I have no reason to doubt that, although it was hard to judge by this trip because I could count how many natives I met on the fingers of one hand. Only 18% of the population in the city is native. “In 5 years, you’ll have to pay money to see a local,” says the head of the heritage foundation. All the work of the country is done by guest labor. The Sheik’s pronouncement that he has 180 nationalities living and working together in peace seems to be true. It’s a truly multi-culti society, revolving around a shared language – English.
Tolerance rules the day. Supermarkets are filled with delicacies from other countries, so the Indians can get their curry and the Thai their furry little fruits. What’s lost is a sense of what is truly Emirati. And that’s beginning to be the source of some angst.
For example, when you get to the lavishly-appointed duty free shop (replete with life-size gold palm trees), you realize that, apart from dates and stuffed camels (another continuing motif; the camel is to Dubai what the moose is to Minneapolis), there’s nothing much that says “authentic Dubai” to buy for the folks back home.
When you're hauling home cheap booze from a Muslim country, you know it’s a problem. The sheik is worried.
Continue reading "Design in Dubai: Authenticity Angst"
Posted by Linda Tischler at 10:00 AM
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June 12, 2007
Design in Dubai: Unreal Real Estate
Forget strife in the Middle East: The biggest story right now in Dubai is real estate. To start, there's the most mind-boggling housing project is on the planet, the The Palm, the luxury home development made by dredging sand from the ocean floor and turning it into palm-shaped tracts of luxury housing. It will soon to be followed by The World, a similar land-fill project in which zillionaires can each buy the ‘island’ of their choice -- Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Africa, etc. -- for about $10M each. Some 40% of the world’s dredgers are now in Dubai. That means there's a lot of property to move, so the city has become one big real estate showcase. 
Everywhere you look, there are signs advertising condos. The airport. Billboards on the highways. On the Emirates airline entertainment channel. In endless free-standing kiosks at the Mall of the Emirates. There’s The Lagoons --- a tract that advertises “a lush waterfront landscape” on Dubai Creek. There’s the Fairmont Palm Residence, which touts a luxury 4 bedroom villa for 18,000,000 AED. (about $5M). And there’s Palazzo Versace Dubai, a 130,000 square meter hotel and condo complex, which will include 215 suites, restaurants, and a day spa, all of which will be furnished with an exclusive line of products from the Versace Home Collection. That 'lifestyle' sideline has been the engine behind the recent turnaround in Versace's fortunes.
There will also be 169 exclusive condominiums, of which 50% have been sold prior to release.Who’s going to buy all these? Who knows? Maybe they should talk to Michael Shvo. But prices are escalating, just like they did in Miami before the recent crash of the overheated market there.
Rashad Bukhas, the head of all Dubai museums, says that two years ago, condos were selling for about $250 AED per sq ft. Now? $1200 AED per sq. ft. for the same type building. The area around the Emirates Tower, he says, will soon be the most expensive square mile in the world.
Dubai is handy for Iranians, who can’t get into the US from Iran, but could get in if they had a Dubai address. And it’s great if you’re working for Halliburton or SOM. No taxes! Golf! Tennis! Horseback riding!
The downside of all this growth? Horrendous traffic. As Greg Brandeau, CTO of Pixar, said, “This is like Sim City in real time.”
Continue reading "Design in Dubai: Unreal Real Estate"
Posted by Linda Tischler at 12:00 PM
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June 11, 2007
Design in Dubai: Future Shock on the Gulf
If you enjoy the smog of LA, the traffic of Washington DC’s Beltway at rush hour, the blistering heat of Orlando in August, the retail pizzazz of the Mall of America, the cultural attractions of Midland, Texas, and the sensitive architecture of Las Vegas, you’ll adore Dubai. It’s Singapore with hummus. “Sim City in real time,” as Greg Brandeau, CTO of Pixar so astutely observed.
Brandeau and I, along with a few hundred design luminaries from around the globe, were recently in Dubai for the first International Design Forum, an initiative created to jump start a conversation between the Arab world and international designers about the commercial and social impact of design in a rapidly changing world.
The conference attracted a glossy array of folks: 
Rem Koolhaas was there to launch a book, Al Manakh (which means ‘climate’ in Arabic), which is an annual publication that will weigh in on how the Arab world is responding to a period of urban hypergrowth – and where design fits in that transformation; and Karim Rashid showed up to present a studio on his designs (and serve as DJ at a late night party for the young ‘uns). Paola Antonelli, curator of the design department at MOMA; Dutch designer Marcel Wanders, international provocateur Oliviero Toscani (the man behind those provocative Benetton ads); Lebanese architect Bernard Khoury; Red Dot president Peter Zec; and Khalid Al Malik, CEO of Tatweer, the company beind such projects as Dubailand, Tiger Woods Dubai (the dhamp’s first golf course; and Bawadi, one of the world’s biggest hospitality companies, all served on panels debating the region's design -- or lack of it.
Posted by Linda Tischler at 3:29 PM
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May 30, 2007
Microsoft Brings My Pet Peeves to the Surface
One of the things that bother me more than anything else is seeing the reflection of finger prints on my computer screen. It seems that no matter how many times I wipe it down with those special disinfectant wipes they are always there. I'm not even sure how they get there in the first place; I certainly don't spend my days fondling the screen. But my compulsion to keep things clean is frequently set off by this constant nuisance.
So, when I was reading the paper this morning, this finger print problem is what instantly struck me when I read about Microsoft's new product, Surface. This new means of setting off my compulsive cleaning is an interactive table that responds to touch. The table will be able to read multiple touches simultaneously, download pictures from a wi-fi enabled camera that is sitting on its surface, and read digitally encrypted cards like hotel key cards.
According to The New York Times, Microsoft is planning to unveil Surface today at a The Wall Street Journal conference on everything digital in California. Here is an article from the Mercury News that describes some of the capabilities of the table as seen firsthand.
Surface will first be marketed commercially and already has buyers like Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide and Harrah's Entertainment. While I think this product may be a neat idea, a whole slew of problems (beside the fact that it will look dirty all the time) spring to mind.
First, there is my propensity to spill drinks on just about everything. I hope Microsoft has built-in some sort of safety mechanism for just such an occasion, since tabletops are usually where people tend to put their drinks first and are often the beneficiary of my martini faux-pas.
A more pressing problem, though, is technology rape. Surface seems like a whole new way to bring identity theft front and center. I imagine that if this device can read a hotel key card, it makes me wonder if it could be programmed to read my credit cards. I can already see myself unknowingly sitting my purse on the table in a hotel only to find that everything electronic has now been scanned by the table and is in the hands of any person who comes to touch the table next. In an instant I have been abused by what I thought was a seemingly innocent piece of furniture.
But alas, until Microsoft unleashes this bit of technological wonder onto the world, I will not know if my fears are unmerited. If you are at the unveiling today or have heard anything else about this electronic furniture, please share (and hopefully set my fears to rest)!
Posted by Lisa LaMotta at 9:39 AM
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April 27, 2007
ad:tech SF: The Digital Decade
On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to conduct the ad:tech San Francisco opening keynote interview with aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews. In "The Digital Decade: What the Past 5 Years Can Teach Us About the Next 5," McAndrews discussed surviving the bust, the difference in this Web boom vs the last, mergers & acquisitions within the marketing/advertising industry, as well as the affects of social media and mobile on marketing.
Of note was McAndrews statement that all media would be going digital in the next five years.
“I think we’ll be a lot closer to all digital in the next five years,” Mr. McAndrews said. “The market will be significantly larger, and it is our belief is that ultimately all media will become digital. The biggest medium of all, television, will become digital. The Internet is the beginning, but it is still one channel.” (via DM News)
As for the future of marketing on mobile, he said:
"There's a healthy tension between advertisers and agencies on the one hand -- who want to push publishers for standards -- but on the other hand, advertisers want innovation and for publishers to give them creative ideas. I think a mistake can be made if we try to format mobile too quickly." (via iMedia Connection)
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 1:34 PM
| 1 Comment
April 26, 2007
Pop!Tech Pop!Casts free for all
Last year’s PopTech! Conference featured an astounding line-up of great speakers: Tom Friedman, Brian Eno, Richard Dawkins, Thomas Barnett, and Juan Enriquez among them. All that cranium-cramming stuff was deliciously leavened with right-brain relief, from the likes of comedian and musician Reggie Watts, the Sinikithemba Choir, and my favorite, the Mexican thrash guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela. For those of us lucky enough to be in the room, it was a mind-bending event.
But here’s the problem with PopTech!: it’s held in the Opera House in Camden, a lovely little venue, but not exactly Madison Square Garden in terms of capacity. As word of this conference grows, and more and more people jockey for one of the 500 spaces, a growing number end up languishing on the waiting list. It’s gotten to be like scoring a ticket to a Stones concert. (and, at $3495 a seat, costs about as much) Can PopTech! scalpers be far behind?
But, taking a page from their concert-promoting brethren, PopTech! organizers are fielding a “Live at PopTech!” batch of videos so that those who didn’t make it to Maine in October can still have the pleasure of sampling the event. (The other alternative for this year: rent a room in a B&B in Camden during the conference. PopTech! broadcasts live on local access cable, so you could watch the whole thing from the comfort of your bed.)
Take a look – or, rather, a listen, to the whole range of delights – the PopTech! Popcasts -- on the conference’s site. It’s all free! Load ‘em on your iPod. Share ‘em with your friends. Sign up for the RSS feed so you can get notice of new ones as soon as they’re posted.
Meanwhile, they’re already taking reservations for this year’s event, whose theme will be the impact human beings have on the world (and each other.) The organizers plan to take a deep look at where ideas come from, exploring startling new scientific insights into the mind and brain, and examining the origins of creativity, innovation, and the essence of human nature.
If you’re serious about going, you might want to sign up soon.
Posted by Linda Tischler at 2:09 PM
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April 19, 2007
min day summit 2007 Wake-Up Call
Here at the MinOnline min day summit in New York at the Grand Hyatt Hotel where George Janson, managing partner, director of print, Mediaedge:cia, stood in front of a room full of magazine and advertising professionals to share insights and suggestions on magazines' "next practices" online from a media buyer's perspective.
Some of the highlights of his 15-minute talk focused on magazine's creating integrated plans that truly offer value to both the reader and the advertiser. He said that people in the magazine industry should stop focusing so much attention on booking banner ads on their sites that interrupt the reader's experience, and start thinking about bringing clients into their sites in a manner that enables the reader to get involved -- such as sponsoring content like polls, quizzes, contests, and mobile messaging programs. But one caveat -- the program has to make since for your site and meet the client's needs.
Janson also stressed that when creating content, editors should focus on the reader. In the end, the advertiser will only be interested in supporting content that's going to be successful on your site. This brings me to another point that Janson made -- that advertising be contextual. Not just text and banner ads that are contextual, but also video ads. He suggested that pre-roll video may not necessarily be the only and best solution for video advertising and that there's room to be more creative and innovative about making this work.
The rest of the day here at min day summit looks like this...
Continue reading "min day summit 2007 Wake-Up Call"
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 8:50 AM
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April 16, 2007
Ideas that Change the World
Remember being a kid and wishing that you could change the world or solve world-hunger? Well, there are adults out there who still believe it is possible and who get together to make it happen in the form of Pop!Tech.
Pop!Tech is a non-profit organization that believes in progress, even if that progress is made by a small group of people one baby step at a time. For the last decade, the company has been holding its annual conference in Camden, Maine where change-agents from all over the world gather in a non-formal setting to make the world a better place. You can get the inside scoop on Pop!Tech 2006 right here at Fast Company.
But if that is just not enough, you can check out a new series of podcasts by Pop!Tech called Pop!Casts, showcasing the great minds of last year's conference.
**Fast Company is a media partner of Pop!Tech
Posted by Lisa LaMotta at 3:31 PM
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November 10, 2006
The Big Theme at Web 2.0
The big theme at this year's Web 2.0 Summit was never mentioned on-stage. It wasn't related to any of the buzzwords uttered in the hallways: tagging, social media, Ajax, or viral video.
The big theme, as I read it, was paranoia.
The conference was crawling with tiny little companies -- two people working out of a corner table in the Starbucks in San Mateo. Their start-up just got $100,000 in angel funding yesterday, and their name is something like 9xPajamas. If you are worth your salt as a journalist/venture capitalist/tech exec, you need to know what they're up to, and whether they matter.
So I was noticing a consistent undercurrent of paranoia. I wondered whether the start-up CEOs I was talking to were the right ones...or whether the dude that Don Clark from the Wall Street Journal was talking to was more important. Venture capitalists eyed other VCs, wondering whether they had the inside track in investing in the next JotSpot (acquired by Google this month.) And one senior Yahoo exec I spoke with at a cocktail party looked positively beleaugered -- he, too, was sifting through all of the companies represented at the conference, trying to figure out which one might be the next YouTube.
The last time I recall feeling such paranoia? Hmmmm.....the year was 2000.
A few tidbits of additional coverage, from my blog CinemaTech:
- Mary Meeker on the Growth of Web Video
- Google CEO Eric Schmidt on YouTube
- A Panel Discussion on `Advertising 2.0'
> FC Now Web 2.0 Summit Coverage
Posted by Scott Kirsner at 11:37 AM
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November 2, 2006
Conferences Galore
There are a bunch of notable conferences on the horizon. As you may already know, members of the Fast Company staff attended Pop!Tech October 18 - 21. Check our conference coverage here.
Next week, we'll be covering ad:tech New York, a conference that focuses on the intersection of marketing and technology in shaping the future of brands, as well as the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, that focuses on emerging business and technology developments that utilize the Web as a platform and defines how the Web will drive business in the future. Be sure to check FC Now next week for updates and live blogging.
Coming up:
LA Games Conference, November 7 - 8, West Hollywood
Making the Most of Business Blogging, November 13, San Francisco
Future of Television, November 16 - 17, New York
MIDEMNet, Januray 20 - 21, 2007, Cannes
Digital Music Forum East, February 27 - 28, 2007, New York
SXSW Interactive, March 9 - 13, 2007, Austin Texas
BlogHer Business, March 22 - 23, 2007, New York
BlogHer '07, July 27 - 28, 2007, Chicago
Business Perspectives for Creative Leaders, July 29 - August 3, 2007, Harvard Business School
What conferences are you looking forward to? Which conferences are essential to your industry?
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 3:26 PM
| 2 Comments
August 1, 2006
Thoughts on Women and Collaboration
There's something I observed at BlogHer '06 about women and collaboration that I didn't see mentioned in author and tech geek blogger Robert Scoble's post "What I Learned from BlogHer," where he sums up his experience there and highlights comparisons to the mostly male tech conferences he's used to attending.
What I observed was best summed up in a statement that Arianna Huffington, syndicated columnist and founder of The Huffington Post, made during the closing keynote, where she shared the stage with Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief founder and professional blogger Grace Davis, WashingtonPost.com/Newsweek Interactive CEO and Publisher Caroline Little, and SixApart founder and President Mena Trott in a discussion lead by Chris Nolan of Spot-on.
Huffington made the statement after announcing that she'd soon launch a new section on her site called "Politics Aside" that would feature topics that were not politics, such as mothering, sex, relationships, and cooking. She said, (and I'm paraphrasing here):
If anyone wants to cross post with us, it’s all about linking and cross posting — it’s all about supporting each other. It's not about if you're buying Newsweek you're not buying Time.
In my experience such a call for sharing of content is not common practice at male conferences — at least not in this context or without some sort of business deal being discussed. Well, unless of course the conversation has anything to do with open source. Don't get me wrong, BlogHer is not based upon an us .vs them philosophy, it's an opportunity for all kinds of women bloggers to pursue exposure, education and community. In that vein, session topics ran the gamut from Search Engine Optimization, Writing for the Web, CSS, Podcasting, and Video to Business Blogging, Community Activism Blogging, and Political Blogging. And besides, men were not excluded from the event. Scoble was there, as was Guy Kawasaki, John Battelle and George Kelly, among others. (Read Christine Herron's post on the estimated ratio.)
Back to my original thought though — am I wrong in thinking that collaboration means something entirely different to women than it does to men?
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 1:25 AM
| 7 Comments
July 31, 2006
Water for Women
If someone were to give you a bottle of water that appeared to have an hour-glass frame and then proceeded to tell you that in drinking said water:
- you will be provided with all of the calcium and magnesium that you needed for that day, and
- you will have a healthier body and be in better shape...
would you believe them? Well I didn't either, but that seems to be the pitch behind Contrex Natural Mineral Water, another sponsor at BlogHer '06.
Contrex is reported to contain 486 mg/L of calcium and 84 mg/L of magnesium, which equals 11.5% of the RDI for calcium and 5% of the RDI for magnesium --- and with no calories. True or not, the entire marketing strategy comes off a little hokey (from the bottle design to the overall focus on body shape) feeding into many women's insecurities with their body weight and shape.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 5:11 PM
| 2 Comments
Sky Ride
As one of the sponsors of BlogHer '06, the conference I wrote about on Friday, GM embarked upon a little one-on-one marketing. Instead of forcing conference attendees to sit through some intolerable PR session about future vehicles from Saturn, the company offered conference goers the opportunity to learn about them first hand by handing over the keys to the rides. For instance, I chose to test drive a silvery two-seater convertible named Saturn SKY.
Continue reading "Sky Ride"
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 12:25 PM
| 1 Comment
July 28, 2006
Welcome to BlogHer '06
Yesterday I endured a long (but pleasant) JetBlue flight from New York to San Jose so that I could attend BlogHer '06. In its second year, the conference's mission is to create an opportunity for all kinds of women bloggers to pursue exposure, education and community.
This morning hundreds of women (and their friends) were welcomed to the conference by BlogHer co-founders Elisa Camahort, Jory des Jardins and Lisa Stone. Of note was Stone's citizen journalism related comment: "Today everybody is press. Everything you say or do is on the record."
Now I'm off to a panel that focuses on starting a community-based blog site. The panel is sponsored by Blurb, an online service that provides software that enables writers to both layout and publish books. It will be very interesting to hear the implications of community-based blogging for businesses.
More from BlogHer soon.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 12:27 PM
| 4 Comments
July 19, 2006
PUSHing the Future
I've been meaning for weeks to report on PUSH 2006, a very smart, cool three-day conference in Minneapolis sponsored in part by...Fast Company.
PUSH—this was the fourth annual iteration—was created by Cecily Sommers, the founder and strategic principal of an "innovation think tank" called Unit 1. Her object was to gather a bunch of thinkers and performers who could help steer us into the future. It's a consciously risky conceit, since not all of these leading-edge creatives have played in prime time before. Mostly, though, it works quite well.
Continue reading "PUSHing the Future"
Posted by Keith Hammonds at 4:23 PM
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March 2, 2006
Digital Music Murmurs
The Digital Music Forum in New York demonstrated how much uncertainty there is in the industry. A sense that big things are afoot underscored the conference, but some of the most powerful players--Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon--were conspicuously absent from the stage. Amid all the speculation, the business-card exchanges, and the cell phone ringtone interruptions, there were several ideas that kept coming up:
--Don't expect the digital rights management debate to be resolved any time soon
--99-cent downloads are not ideal--some call it price fixing--but any change is going to trigger a nasty fight
--The subscription set-up tends to work
--MySpace.com will go where the teens go and with roughly 60 million users in tow, it would be wise to keep an eye on that
--Independent music market to industry: embrace the anarchy and go open-source
--Capitalize on P2P with legit systems and do it now
--iTunes better watch out. No, really. For real this time.
--Go for interoperability, but good luck getting permission
--The people paying for digital music tend to be pasty, overweight, and balding; the young cool types keep figuring out how to get it for free
--There are ways to monetize "free"
So where do all these soundbites leave us? Until someone makes a real move, a lot of white noise. The good news is there's not only room for clever ideas in the industry, there's a thirst for them.
Posted by Alyssa Danigelis at 2:32 PM
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January 27, 2006
The Sundance Set Considers the Net
We're approaching the end of the Sundance Film Festival here in Park City, Utah. The filmmakers in attendance this morning for a panel discussion about delivering movies over the Internet seemed alternately energized and terrified by the prospect. They acknowledged the Internet’s potential as a marketplace for movies that may not receive traditional distribution (via DVDs or theaters or television), but worried about who would pony up the millions required to support their more ambitious projects.
Posted by Scott Kirsner at 5:08 PM
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January 10, 2006
Steve Jobs at Macworld: Reality Distortion Field in Full Effect
Few things, in today’s business world, are as cult-like as a Steve Jobs keynote address at Macworld. (Warren Buffett’s annual shareholder gathering might come close.) So when Jobs came onstage, unannounced, this morning at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the applause was thunderous. The audience cheered when Jobs mentioned Apple’s fourth quarter revenues (a record $5.7 billion) and its 83 percent market share of legal music downloads. A lot more was in store...
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Posted by Scott Kirsner at 1:49 PM
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January 5, 2006
Live, from the Consumer Electronics Show...
Clearly, this week, Las Vegas is the world capital of overstimulation (and mile-long lines to buy a hot dog or board a shuttle bus). Today was the official opening of the Consumer Electronics Show, and here are some quick impressions so far.
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Posted by Scott Kirsner at 5:31 PM
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December 6, 2005
Google's plans for video
Jennifer Feikin, who runs Google Video, spoke today at the Digital Living Room conference in Foster City, Calif. She made some interesting quasi-announcements about the company's future plans for delivering video content - and charging for it.
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Posted by Scott Kirsner at 8:05 PM
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October 20, 2005
PopTech! Kicks Off
Given the events of 2005 – killer hurricanes, radical insurgencies, melting ice caps, threats of pandemics – the theme of this year’s PopTech!, “Grand Challenges,” has a “ripped from the headlines” urgency.
Stepping to the stage before a sold-out crowd at Camden, Maine’s opera house this morning, curator Andrew Zolli promised the next three days would explore not only a range of catastrophes currently besetting the earth and its people, but also the enormous opportunities for exploration, creativity, and sustainability on the horizon, driven by human ingenuity and invention.
Promising beginning! Unfortunately, the first speaker, Graham Flint, a physicist who is working on a portrait of the world as seen thru gigapixel digital cameras quickly got bogged down in the minutae of the technology instead of demonstrating its cool applications.
In conjunction with Google Earth, Flint and his team are currently building a portrait of America, but will soon move to preserve images of the world’s endangered sites in high rez. “Had we photographed the Buddhas before the Taliban blew them up we’d have that forever, but now it’s forever lost,” he says. The images, on display in the opera house, had an HDTV-like clarity. I worried about those rusty bolts on the side of the space shuttle Discovery in one picture.
Meanwhile Rome is “dissolving like an Alka Seltzer because of acid rain. If future generations want to see what the Coliseum looked like, they’re going to have to see it via virtual reality since reality reality will be gone,” Flint says.
Flint ended with an image showing what the camera can do in a useful way – projecting an image of a nude beach in California, with pre-blurred faces to protect the perps. Stay tuned for the debate over the privacy implications of this technology. Check out the project at www.gigapxl.org.
Folks who can’t make it to Camden can watch the conference on ITConversations.com and ask questions via live@poptech.org.
Posted by Linda Tischler at 10:48 AM
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October 7, 2005
Web 2.0: Wish You Were Here
I've been ducking in and out of the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco this week, and it has been pretty consistently great. Just to name drop for a moment: the coffee breaks offered the chance to sip java with the likes of former FCC chairman Michael Powell, Release 1.0 founder Esther Dyson, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, and InterActive Corp. CEO Barry Diller.
The idea underlying the event is that we're in the midst of a Web renaissance. Hosts John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly would tell you that the Web 2.0 era is about APIs, third-party developers, "lightweight" business models, AJAX, RSS, mash-ups, and so on. But I think it can be explained without resorting to wonky acronyms: this second generation of the Web is fertile, energetic and interesting because four things have happened.
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Posted by Scott Kirsner at 5:27 PM
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September 27, 2005
Conference Recap...
...wherein we save you from awkward networking, bad coffee, and having to deal with the crowds in Times Square. In this edition, Forrester Research's Consumer Forum, a two-day event at New York's Marriott Marquis, which focused on customer-driven innovation and featured reps from Whirlpool, HP, Frog Design, and a whole host of Forrester analysts. I sat in on sessions with Target Vice Chairman Gerald Storch and Apple VP of worldwide product marketing for iPod Greg Joswiak. Here's what you missed:
Target, thank god, won't be installing self check-out kiosks in their stores anytime soon. "Our cashiers are simply faster," Storch said. "And check-out kiosks are poor service." Anyone who's tried to get one of those annoying things at Home Depot to work quickly will breathe a sigh of relief.
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Posted by Jena McGregor at 4:06 PM
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August 8, 2005
Company Conference Confusion
Remember the last corporate event you attended? Perhaps it was an industry or association program. What kind of speakers worked best for you? Corporate executives and their meeting planners struggle with recruiting the perfect platform presenter every year. Which of these basic choices are most memorable for you?
- The inspirational "take 'em to the top of the mountain" type?
- The practical, pragmatic person who gave you "aha!" moments that proved useful to your business model?
- Or the humorist that provided just enough comic relief to lighten that tough workload you carry each day?
What are you best and worst memories from your last conference?
Posted by Dan Seidman at 8:45 AM
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June 29, 2005
Tracking the Hackers
I've ducked in quickly to the Where 2.0 Conference in San Francisco today, to see a couple sessions.
Tim O'Reilly, founder of the publishing and event company O'Reilly, which organized the conference, is making the case for observing what hackers, technophiles, and hobbyists are working on, if you care about where the next opportunities lie in high-tech. (He's using the positive definition of the term "hacker," meaning someone who plays with new technologies to explore the possibilities, much like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak did in creating the first personal computer.)
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Posted by Scott Kirsner at 3:22 PM
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June 21, 2005
Opportunities in the Tail
If you haven't yet heard - or used - the phrase 'the long tail,' you're not buzzword compliant for 2005.
Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired Magazine, coined the phrase in an article that appeared last fall in that magazine. He's now writing a book on the long tail phenomenon, and along the way, posting to a Weblog.
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Posted by Scott Kirsner at 2:41 PM
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Schwartz Kicks off Supernova
Here at the Supernova conference in San Francisco, Jonathan Schwartz is making a case for executive blogging.
Schwartz is the president and COO of Sun Microsystems, and he's also probably the highest-profile exec in the Fortune 500 to maintain a blog.
"If you want to be a leader, I can't see surviving without a blog," he told conference host Kevin Werbach. "It's as important as having an e-mail account and a mobile phone." It doesn't count, he added, if you delegate the task of maintaining your blog to someone on your staff.
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Posted by Scott Kirsner at 12:50 PM
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August 13, 2004
Some Good Stuff...
Today I had the opportunity to hear three great authors and business leaders at The Leadership Summit happening here in Chicago. Marcus Buckingham (author of First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths), Tim Sanders (Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! and author of Love is the Killer App), and Steven Sample (author of The Contrarians Guide to Leadership).
I will be posting detailed notes on my site in the next couple of days, but in the meantime I wanted to leave you with a few thoughts from Marcus Buckingham who today shared a few thoughts from his new book, The One Thing You Need to Know, which will be released in 2005.
Five questions that will help managers better understand those who are on their team:
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Posted by Scott Hodge at 7:18 PM
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