Years ago, when I was still working at the Financial Times, I would go drinking with my buddies Dave Galbraith and Om Malik (GigaOm). We would go to Harringtons pub downtown San Francisco, usually on a Thursday evening.
At the time (late 2003/early 2004) Dave and Om were full bore into the blogger scene. You should start blogging was their line. I told them I write six news stories a day, I'm already writing all the time, what would blogging give me?
[San Francisco Ferry Building Monday eve]
In case you missed it, late last Friday I said I would publish your guest posts on Fridays. Why worry about feeding your blog, and maintaining an audience? Publish here on SVW (you can publish on your blog too (...a little later)). Send me your guest post, any length (it's your call, your name, your content) to tom(at)foremski.com.
I reserve the right to maybe do a little light editing if needed, only to make you look better. So send them in, don't be shy :)
Keeping up a blog is hard work, you have to be consistent otherwise you lose your audience. Why not send me a guest post? That way you can establish your thought leadership without all the hard work of maintaining a blog.
I'm announcing Guest Post Friday! Send me your post with that subject line to tom(at)siliconvalleywatcher.com, with links and with any graphics, and I'll publish it on Friday. I'd like to get first shot then you can re-publish elsewhere.
(I do reserve the right to not publish, and to do some light editing if needed. And you have to use your real name.)
I'm driving up to Portland later this week with my son Matthew (21) and visiting Intel's research and manufacturing facilities. I'll be part of a group of "Intel Insiders."
I'll also be meeting with Intel executives such as Eric Dishman of Intel's Health Research and products division (video here: http://bit.ly/zsYyC ). And we will be testing out Portland's WiMAX. Hopefully we'll have WiMAX in Silicon Valley before too long.
There will be a "Tweetup" on Thursday at 7pm at the Green Dragon hosted by the Portland Social Media Club, more details here (and thanks for the graphic.) And I hear Intel is buying the first round of beers, so please stop by.
On Twitter we'll be replying to @Intel and using the #IntelInsiders hashtag if you'd like to follow our progress.
I'll be posting news, tweets, and taking some video, plus reports from my road trip up and back. So please stay tuned for the SVW Road Trip to Portland, leaving Wednesday afternoon.
(Intel is a sponsor of SVW).
- - -
Please see:
Social Media Club PDX » Blog Archive » Social Media Tweetup. Meet Social Media Insiders on April 16
On Thursday, April 16 Intel will host a visit by several “Intel Insiders.” These folks are literally the who’s who in social media and technology and they’ll be in P-town checking out Intel’s tech and touring their fabs and research centers. As a special bonus, they’ll be heading downtown in the evening to join several folks from Social Media Club PDX at The Green Dragon Pub for chit-chat and beer.
Who are these so called Insiders? Well below is a list with links to their respective web properties:
Sweet, huh? Join your fellow Portland Social Media Peeps on Thursday, April 16 from 7:30 to 8:30 for a Tweetup at the Green Dragon. And if the notoriety of these Insiders isn’t enough to spark your interest, Intel will provide the first round of beers (depending on how many people show up). We hope to see you there!
Here is the panel discussion from "Fridays with Foremski" a proposed weekly video series that showcases the extraordinary region of Silicon Valley.
Panelists: Drew Clark (IBM Ventures) Jim Dempsey (Center for Democracy and Technology) Sylvia Paull (founder of Gracenet) Godfrey Sullivan (Splunk) Matthew Greeley (Brightidea).It's a lively discussion about President Obama's tech policies and what Silicon Valley needs to continue to do what it does best: disrupt industries.
The panel is part of a pilot program called "Fridays with Foremski" that follows me around Silicon Valley as I speak with local entrepreneurs, thought leaders, report on conferences, etc. Silicon Valley is an unique place and we want to produce a professional program that captures some of the essence of this amazing community.
We'd like to attract a couple of large underwriters for the series, we're talking with one large company, if you know of another let me know. That way you might see a second episode . . . coming to a Friday near you :)
Produced by SF Media Collective. Recorded at the Horn Group.
Please see a Silicon Valley sampler:
More behind the scenes...
I don't like chain letters but I like the tone of this chain: Writing 25 random things about yourself and then "tagging" 25 others to invite them to do the same. I got tagged this morning . . .
(If you read this consider yourself tagged :-) send me a link and I'll add the first 25 to the bottom of this post, I'd love to find out more about my readers. Don't be shy.)
1: I was born in Salzburg, Austria, left after 6 months.
2: My parents are Polish.
3: My parents wanted to emigrate to Canada but couldn't because I was under 2 years old.
4: I had whooping cough as a baby. There is a saying that to cure it you have to cross over a body of water, in this case the English Channel seemed to do the trick.
5: I really miss not living with my kids.
6: I like Hugo Boss suits.
7: I think of myself as semi-literate.
8: I like to notice irony and believe "ironic design" proves the hand of the supreme being more than "intelligent design." Because there is someone/something paying attention, moment to moment, and trying to mess with us. Intelligent design is more about "set it and forget it."
9: I'm an atheist.
10: I'd like reason and logic to make a comeback, I'd like to see a new enlightenment.
11: I try not to think too much, instead, allow myself the space to think.
12: I keep a pen and a slim moleskine notebook always on hand - it's my hipster PDA - it's instant on, high definition, stylus input, sharable, and 100% recyclable.
13: I prefer offline to online.
14: I've never had a wine cooler and want to keep it that way.
15: I don't know how to small talk.
16: I am afraid of karaoke. I can't carry a tune even if it were super-glued to me.
17: I like thinking on my toes.
18: I like "and" rather than "or." The world is not black or white it is black and white and more.
19: I like to have my cake and eat it.
20: The more I write the more authentic I become.
21: I like Manhattans.
22: I like Manhattan.
23: I like road trips.
24: I'm intensely interested in the future of media.
25: I prefer conversation more than going to the movies.
I was hoping to escape the echo chamber of the Bay Area by going to CES in Las Vegas. I've only been partially successful so far.
I flew in Wednesday morning and booked into Planet Hollywood. After a nap and some blog posts it was already evening. I set off onto the strip heading for The Venetian to catch a "blogger" party sponsored by Lenovo. It was mostlyt full of the same people I see all the time but also some of my favorite people such as Paul Mooney, that I only see once a year.
Paul Mooney is OG or rather OB, an original blooger, he's the real thing - no fancy rooms or flights paid for by sponsors. He used his frequent flier miles to make it to CES and is couch surfing while he's here. (Photo of Paul Mooney and John Furrier.)
Also at the party were the social climbers of the blogosphere, Julia Allison, Megan Asha, and pals. It was nice to chat with them but it also seemed a little sad that they would travel all this way from New York city to socialize with CES geeks and bloggers, hoping to climb a little higher in their media popularity.
I would say that Ms. Allison peaked when she made the cover of Wired magazine last year, for no other reason than being an example of someone that pursues Internet publicity. I'm happy to make my micro contribution to her cause, but these days it all seems a little too dated, a little too 2008...
She tells me she has ambitions beyond Wired, but I promised I wouldn't say which magazines she is targeting this year. It seems like a harmless hobby.
It was also great to run into pals Ken Kaplan of Intel, Chris Heuer and his lovely wife Kristie Wells, JD Lassica, John Furrier, and Brian Solis.
I'm very much looking forward to Thursday afternoon. I have a meeting with Craig Barrett, chairman of the world's largest chip maker, Intel (and one of my most loyal sponsors.)
- - -
Internet Famous: Julia Allison and the Secrets of Self-Promotion
Julia Allison and Meghan Asha Dish About Digital Cribs Via TelePresence - DigItAll Consumer
I've always been a little uncomfortable with the blogosphere's penchant for blatant self-promotion. However, the following videos are not completely all my doing :-)
Here is the third video in a series that SanDisk commissioned as part of its "Life Moves" series that encourages people to use flash disks to create and share videos. The series contains a mini-documentary on SVW and covers some of my work--which includes non-geek coverage of Silicon Valley/Bay Area culture with Allison Lovejoy from Lovejoy Lowdown.
The series is co-produced by the SF Media Collective (of which I am a founding member) and Bunny Production. Special thanks to Aron Pruiett, Celso Dulay, and Chris Knight.
About SVW . . .Microsoft is launching new Online Services at an event Monday Morning at the St. Regis hotel in San Francisco (more details to come). I'll be part of a "Blogger Roundtable" at noon. I hope to see you there. Here is the line up:
David Spark (also as moderator)
From Microsoft:
Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Online
David Howell, Director, Microsoft Online Engineering
Bharat Shah, General Manager, Microsoft Online Engineering
Eron Kelly, Sr. Director, Microsoft Online
Alex Payne, Director, Office Client Product Management
Andrew Kisslo, Sr. Product Manager, Office Client
I'm excited -- I'm confident that this will be the beginning of a great, ongoing dialog with the company. As I have said in earlier email, the folks from Microsoft are looking for insight from key people in several communities so that they know what makes sense -- and what to do -- going forward. We are already looking at future engagements, events and programs, and we hope you will help in making them real for everyone involved.
- Thursday morning I'll be on a Bulldog Reporter panel:
Top Tech Bloggers Share the New Rules of Pitching Online Influencers in Technology
With me will be:
-- John Dvorak, Columnist, Marketwatch.com; Host, "Crankygeeks," "Tech5," "This Week in Tech," "No Agenda"
-- Kara Swisher, Co-Executive Editor, "D: All Things Digital;" Author, "BoomTown"
-- Jon Fortt, Senior Writer, Fortune (circ. 931,495); Blogger, "Big Tech"
-- Tom Foremski, Author, "Silicon Valley Watcher;" Board Member, Research Fellow, Society for New Communications Research
-- John Biggs, Editor In Chief, "CrunchGear;" Author, "Black Hat: Misfits, Criminals and Scammers in the Internet Age;" Publisher, "BigWideLogic
- Then Thursday evening I'll be moderating a panel: "Web 2.0 in Action!"
Location: Hanson Bridgett LLP, 425 Market Street , 26th Floor,: San Francisco CA 94105
With: Jonathan Dillon, VP of Strategic Partnerships, Yahoo!
Tom Costello, CEO and Co-Founder, Cuil
Jason Devitt, CEO and Co-Founder, Skydeck
Richard Alfonsi, Director, Online Sales & Operations, Google, Inc.
Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook
- November 13 I will be talking with the teams over at Engage PR.
- December 8 I will be at FountainBlue's High Tech Entrepreneurs' Forum on a panel:
Technology Predictions for 2009
from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
at Jones Day, 1755 Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto
http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=147315
For this month’s high tech entrepreneurs’ forum, we have invited an investor, a corporate intrapreneur, an entrepreneur and an analyst to speak on the evolution of the technology markets and to make technology predictions for 2009, while providing advice to entrepreneurs on how to best navigate the business and technology changes expected in the new year.
· Facilitator Jones Day IP partner
· Panelist Rebeca Hwang, Director of Network Strategy and Development, YouNoodle, Member Board of Directors and Chair of Judging California Clean Tech Open
· Panelist Lars Leckie, Principal, Hummer Winblad
· Panelist Eghosa Omoigui, Director, Strategic Investments, Consumer Internet, Semantic Technologies, Intel Capital
· Panelist Katya Stesin, Serial Entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of recently funded Razoom
Virtualization in the data center promises to make IT less expensive and more adaptable. It can improve the efficiency of data centers and help companies turn on a dime in terms of deploying applications and responding to spikes in business.
Virtualization is still a new technology and there are many questions about how best to deploy it and where the largest benefits can be gained.
We've got a great line up of speakers! Please tune in on November 4 for the SVW channel on virtualization followed by a roundtable discussion (it's free!). Also, you can embed the following widget in your website if you'd like to spread the word.
Here is the link to the channel: http://www.brighttalk.com/channels/1258/view
I'm often asked "what are you working on?" My usual reply is whatever I find interesting. Well, this time I have a more specific answer. I'm working on a Virtualization Summit with BrightTALK that will be audio broadcast as a webinar on November 4 and will also feature some articles before the event.
I'm looking for some experts on all aspects of virtualization, if you have any suggestions of people i should consider talking with or including in this event please send them to me ASAP: Tom at SiliconValleyWatcher.com and mention virtualization somewhere in the subject line. Thanks!
I put together a fun promo reel for "Fridays with Foremski" a weekly video show launching in September that chronicles my travels around Silicon Valley. I'll be interviewing top CEOs, thought leaders, profiling startups, and covering major events and conferences. The focus will be the business and culture of Silicon Valley.
Plus, I'll have my own gang of pundits, similar to Steve Gillmor's excellent Gillmor Gang, with a discussion on the week's events. I'll be working with Alex Ross, my new VP of business development and the publisher of "Friday's with Foremski."
We are just beginning to pull together the sponsorships so if you'd like to find out more, please contact Alex Ross [alex(at)siliconvalleywatcher.com].
I'm out of town until the end of this week but when I return I'll tell you more about the series--and I'll be looking for suggestions from my readers about topics and people that they'd like to see on "Fridays with Foremski."
Here is a flavor of what you'll see, compiled from my work over the past year.
Next week is Intel Developer Forum (Intel is a sponsor of SVW) from August 19 to 21 in San Francisco. I'll be hanging out in or around the Upload Lounge shooting some video and doing interviews, so swing by, no appointment necessary.
It's a great idea for Intel to host an upload lounge with fast speeds. I've been shooting a lot more video these days but it takes ages for me to upload video--far longer than editing the content. At the Upload Lounge I should be able to shoot, process, and upload a lot more video.
See you there!
NowPublic - "Crowd Powered Media" - revealed its list of 50 influential individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco. I got in at number 28, above Tim O'Reilly, the very influential Sebastapol based publisher of books for geeks. Number one is Robert Scoble followed by Mike Arrington.
Foremski's Take:
The list is interesting and there are many similar lists out there, with almost the same names but in different orders. I don't think it is possible to create an ultimate "influencer" list because the order of the names is different in different communities. I would trade my position for a higher spot in a smaller community such as VCs, or financial analysts. That would be much more valuable. Because the game is not about numbers of eyeballs it is about who's eyeballs.
Advertisers still buy media based on aggregate numbers but the real opportunity is to buy the right numbers. There is a potentially very lucrative arbitrage opportunity here.
- - -
I'm always flattered to be included but I take these lists with a large pinch of salt and I suggest you do too. Here is NowPublic's list of top 50 influencers (my bold):
1 Robert Scoble
2 Michael Arrington
3 Jack Dorsey
4 Biz Stone
5 Matt Cutts
6 Pete Cashmore
7 Dave Winer
8 Guy Kawasaki
9 Loïc Le Meur
10 Kevin Rose
11 Merlin Mann
12 Stowe Boyd
13 Jeff Atwood
14 Jeremiah Owyang
15 Veronica Belmont
16 Kara Swisher
17 Scott Beale
18 Marc Andreessen
19 Ryan Block
20 David Sifry
21 Emily Chang
22 Om Malik
23 Timothy Ferriss
24 Nick Douglas
25 John Battelle
26 David Cohn
27 Louis Gray
28 Tom Foremski
29 Tim O'Reilly
30 Ariel Waldman
31 Matt Mullenweg
32 Dean Takahashi
33 Philip Kaplan
34 JD Lasica
35 Sarah Lacy
36 Brian Solis
37 Charlene Li
38 Rafe Needleman
39 Dan Farber
40 Howard Rheingold
41 David McClure
42 Margaret Mason
43 Jason Goldman
44 Leah Culver
45 Chris Shipley
46 Jackson West
47 Liz Gannes
48 Owen Thomas
49 Adeo Ressi
50 Max Levchin
The Most Public Index, Silicon Valley | The News is NowPublic.com
[Intel is a sponsor of Silicon Valley Watcher.]
I'm a member of a small group of advisors to Intel to provide consulting and feedback on corporate communications programs being developed by the world's largest chip maker.
Tuesday marked the first meeting of the "Intel Insider" group. I know many of the people involved in the creation of the group and also many of those chosen to take part. And I like the calculated risks that Intel is taking by involving some of the top names in the blogosphere and not imposing any restrictions on what we write about. There is some compensation provided for our time. It is mostly in the form of early access to news and also we get to keep some consumer products that contain Intel chips. There is no requirement to write anything about Intel, or the products.
It's an interesting project and I'm always interested in new ventures where we don't yet know what the answers are, where we don't yet know what are the best practices. And as Intel celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, it is a bold step for what has traditionally been a conservative company.
The Intel Insider program seeks to discover some of the best practices in corporate social/new media and in doing so, the results can be shared broadly. There is no restriction on the Intel Insiders sharing the results of the program with others.
What I like about the Intel Insider program is that it's innovative but it's not about technology -- even though Intel's business is all about innovation in technology.
Sean Maloney . . .
Tuesday we got to spend some time with Sean Maloney, Intel's number 2 executive next to CEO Paul Otellini. I've followed Mr Maloney's career for many years, he always gets the most interesting and also some of the toughest jobs at Intel. 
Mr Maloney spoke about Intel's decision to pull nearly all of its TV broadcast spend and to go almost completely online. He said it was because Intel could not be sure it was reaching the right people through TV. There will still be some spending on newspaper ads but not much.
Moving online however, is a problem. He said that the fragmentation of the online media and the differences in how that plays out in various countries has created a "fog." It is difficult to know where to spend online and then how best to measure the effectiveness of that spend.
(I will be posting a short video of Mr Maloney discussing this topic as soon as YouTube has processed the material.)
It was very interesting discussing the latest online trends with all the other Intel Insiders, including some of Intel's top communications and marketing people. I'll be sharing some of these discussions in additional posts this week and over the coming months.
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[I'm on my first trip to Japan as a guest of Lunarr - a Portland based tech start-up founded by two Japanese entrepreneurs Toru Takasuka and Hideshi Hamaguchi. On the trip with me is Marshall Kirkpatrick from Read Write Web, Bob Walsh from 47Hats, and, Kristen Nicole from Mashable.]
I barely slept the night before leaving for Tokyo so it wasn't a problem sleeping through much of the flight. I woke a little groggy as were coming into land. As I opened up the window shutter all I saw was a bright field of blue and a couple of tiny ships way below.
As we flew lower we were over land that was divided into neat fields of squares and rectangles, all of it laying close and flat to the water, from the ocean and from a broad river delta. Here and there among the fields and rice paddies, were islands of manicured golf courses and verdant woods.
When the aircraft door opened I could feel the warmth and humidity of the outside rush in--a welcome change from the dry, chill air of the cabin. I soon regrouped with Hideshi, Kristen, Bob, and Marshall as we walked to immigration and then picked up our bags. We had about an hour to kill before our bus ride to the Tokyo Dome Hotel, which we did at a Starbucks.
I found a Herald Tribune newspaper. It's always a pleasure to read a newspaper - especially a traditional broadsheet. It was massive when unfolded, much larger than the tiny coffee table I was sitting at.
We boarded the bus and 40 minutes later we were at the hotel. After a quick shower we were back in the lobby where we met Hisashi Katsuya, an executive with IBM Japan. Hideshi had briefed us on Mr Katsuya, a human social network, a central connector for the Japanese VC and startup communities. He works with IBM venture capital group and is the most connected person in the Japanese VC community. He knows all the startups that are worth knowing, he writes a blog on CNET Japan, and meets with 5 or 6 startups a day.
Hisashi grew up in Tokyo and knows its labyrinth of streets and tiny alleys very well. We walk through one of the oldest districts in Tokyo, past a temple and down a cobblestone-lined alley to a tiny restaurant that feels like someone's front room. We sit on the floor and eat and talk about the plan for the rest of the week.
Hideshi and Hisashi explain what they have dubbed Deep Dive Tokyo - an immersive cultural experience plunging us into the history and traditions of Japan and back into modern Tokyo and the tech and startup culture.
Along the way we will see ancient Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, and the stunning 360 degree view from the top of Tokyo's tallest building. We will meet Japan's most successful venture capitalist, top Japanese government officials, and Japanese startups. We will experience and see some of the many sub-cultures that flourish in Japan. It's a very full schedule with not much time for blogging or Twittering -- but I can't wait.
[Check back for some images and video from my arrival.]
Jeff Nolan and his team at Newsgator put together a great media widget for my sponsor Intel (over in the right hand column). This is much better use of this space than a banner ad or skyscraper ad that repeats a marketing message.
The Intel media widget showcases Intel's new/social media and it changes all the time. It shows off the human face of Intel rather than a slick ad with a slick marketing message.
I'm looking for one PR company that would like to become a sponsor of SVW and use the media widget format to showcase themselves and their clients. I only want one PR company for this slot - I need a Rooster PR company, one with cojones :-)
- - -
MediaWatch: Media Widgets Will Be The New Ads... Are You Feeling Innovative?
Crawl South Park...
Web 2.0 is coming next week, it is going to be super busy. Wendesday evening the organizers have put together a South Park Crawl where the restaurants and other places will be open to Web 2.0 revellers. I'll be shooting Silicon Valley Minutes on Thursday from noon onwards over at/by The Conversation Group's Blogger Lounge 3rd floor Room 3018.
Poland's Deputy Prim Minister...
Clay Bullwinkel writes: Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak is speaking at Stanford University April 30 4:30-6:00 pm. Attendance is open and without cost, but you need to RSVP in advance because there is a room capacity. I am part of a team which is assisting his visit. My responsibility is the arrangement of meetings and agendas with leading executives of some of Silicon Valley’s big companies, the purpose of attracting R & D investment to Poland.
Please see:
Silicon Valley Skills Crisis: Poland Emerging As A Top Source of Engineers
One in Four Adults Blog!!! Better Educated But Lower Incomes...
The Center for Media Research reports:
BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Survey, 26% of all adults say they regularly or occasionally blog. Of those:
- * 53.7% are male
- 44.7% are married
- 28.4% hold a professional or managerial position
- 10.4% are students.
Bloggers tend to be younger, averaging 37.6 years old, compared to 44.8 for adults 18+ (the "general population"). Ethnically:
- 69.7% of Bloggers are White/Caucasian (vs. 76.1%)
- 12.2% are African American/Black (vs. 11.4%)
- 3.7% are Asian (vs. 2.0%)
- 20% of Bloggers are Hispanic, compared to 14.8% of adults 18+
Political Views By Pictures...
Why ask people survey questions when you can show them pictures?
Take a 3 minute visual test to determine your "Election Fever" says Youniverse. Then compare your results to others. So far:
Youth Fixes Planet...
Kevin Cheng drew my attention to The Tech Museum's 21st Tech Challenge which challenges students to solve a problem working in teams.
This year the challenge is Water Works:
- 1 in 5 people on the planet don't have regular access to safe drinking water.
- Create a device, powered by the river, to deliver water to the village's water tank.
- There is no electricity. Use the flow of the stream to generate power.
Kevin has been working with the teams, he writes:
This year's Challenge will really be something special and unique, not only is enrollment at an all time high, but participants are ranging from as far as India, Taiwan and all throughout the United States.
I've been fortunate to have met and spoken with a number of the contestants, and I was blown away by these kids. Along with the innovative and polished devices, what really stood out to me was each student teams' approach toward communicating and working together. Not only were some kids using technology gadgets like web cams, digital camera, and advanced computer programs but some even went as far as to use applications like blogspot, or facebook. It stunned me to learn about the how each student managed their time and energy between their academics, extracurricular activities, personal lives and their commitment to the Tech Challenge.
Every weekend leading up to the Tech Challenge ( Sat., May 3rd from 9AM to 6 PM ) the Museum opens it's doors and allows access for students to seek help, test their applications, mingle with other participants, or spectate the trial runs. These clinics have been great for the kids, and have had terrific turn out more than doubling expectations. It is also a great opportunity for these young engineers to have fun meeting and interacting with other young minds, as well as the community that supports them.
Out & About At Parties:
David Spark Flips Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3 at Kliptronic's roof party.
Owen Thomas and fellow Valleywaggers hold court on Kliptronic's roof.
Ouch Quote of the week:
Owen Thomas on Mike Arrington's refusal to correct an inaccurate story:
Now you know why Mike always insists that you not call him a journalist.
Coming soon to my couch:
Friday's With Foremski - a video chat show
News.com Chief Dan Farber Brings Lessons Of Blogger Media
On May 10: Exhibit Launch & Open House: Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2
This five-ton Engine is one of only two Charles Babbage’s computing engines ever built, consisting of 8,000 parts of bronze, cast iron and steel and measuring 11 feet long and 7 feet high. It was designed to calculate and print mathematical tables. Come to see the docents “crank” the Engine and watch it mechanically calculate - an arresting spectacle of automatic computing.
The exhibit launch and open house, a Victorian-themed event, promises a stunning display of Babbage’s elegant design and inspired engineering. His designs for vast mechanical calculating engines rank as one of the startling achievements of the 19th century.
- On Monday April 7, I will be at Bulldog Reporter's Media Relations Summit 2008 at the St. Francis in San Francisco. I will be speaking as part of this panel at 4.30pm:
Blogger Relations: Inside the Hearts and Minds of Top Online PunditsTom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher;
Om Malik, Giga Om;
Craig Newmark, Craigslist.org;
Jon Greer, BNET/Media Bridge.
- Coming up, April 22 to 25th I will be speaking at at the always excellent New Communications Forum 2008. Don't miss it! It will be at the beautiful Vineyard Creek Inn & Spa in Sonoma county, just an hour or so north of San Francisco.
I will be on the podium with Shel Israel and Jim Long. Here is Shel to explain:
Jim Long has been an NBC cameraman for nearly 10 years. His current assignment is the dubious distinction of following George Bush. He goes where Bush goes in the world and that recently included African. Jim has been behind the camera in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Those of you who use Twitter know him as NewMediaJim, one of the most popular, accessible and likable residence of Twitterville.Tom Foremski, the former Financial Times tech business editor who now heads the team at Silicon Valley Watch, the insightful, provocative popular blog. When it comes to stories about business and technology, Tom has been there and done that and he talks about what he has seen with a sense of humor and occasional outrage.
Jim and Tom are two of the best story tellers I know and I am honored to be on the dais with them at the upcoming SNCR Forum in Sonoma April 22-5. We are going to talk about the social, cultural and business implications of the transition from old media to new. i knw they will be great because they are two of the best conversational story tellers I know. I was supposed to have a half-hour lunch with Jim at SXSW. It last nearly three hours. I've had more fun hanging out with Tom in a Palo Alto parking garage than I often have at planned Silicon Valley receptions. http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2008/04/new-media-jim-t.html
I have a very special "friend of the speaker discount" 45 per cent off! Email me and I'll send you the booking code for registration at http://www.newcommforum.com.
- Also, I often speak at lunch time events at PR companies about journalism, blogging, new communications and anything else. I do these for free as part of an educational series. Contact me if you are interested in one of these lunch events. You can call my cell on 415 336 7547.
I've been hard at work on a couple of new launches such as Silicon Valley Minute and am backed up on my coverage. Here are some of the articles coming up:
- Exclusive thought leader interview with Jon Flaxman, Chief Administration Officer for Hewlett-Packard. Mr Flaxman reports directly to Mark Hurd, CEO of HP, his job is to drive business process efficiency across all HP business groups. Reengineering HP.
- Interview with Robert Tennant, CEO of Recommind, a hot enterprise search company about to break out from its leading position in the eDiscovery legal market.
- Interview with Guillaume Cohen, CEO of Veodia, a hot enterprise video company. It describes itself as "The Live TV Studio In Your Browser" and it's true, it's a very unique service backed up with some impressive technology.
- I visit the birth place of Silicon Valley: The garage from which William Hewlett and David Packard built Silicon Valley giant Hewlett-Packard. HP opens it up only once a year. Exclusive video coming. I will also put it up on my site (coming soon!) Silicon Valley Garage.com
- Exclusive interview with Dan Farber, the new Editor-in-Chief of CNET's News.com. Dan Farber is one of the industry's top journalists and editors and he built a very successful network of top bloggers on ZDNet. This veteran of old and new media has plans to boost one of the top global media brands.
A company's pitch is its most valuable communication it answers: "Who are you and what do you do?"
I meet with hundreds of companies every year, not just from Silicon Valley but from all over the world. They are all passionate about their ventures and about their products and services. Yet many of them will take half-an-hour to explain what they do.
And in that half-an-hour I will learn more about their competitors than I will about them. They often don't know that they are not communicating well.
Concise, clear communication, is vital to the success of any venture. It is the most valuable piece of communications that any company possesses.
And it is also the most difficult to master. I know it is tough because I've been there myself.
When I left the Financial Times in May 2004, I took most of the summer off to set up as a media entrepreneur. I had many lunches and dinners with friends and industry contacts and I told them what I wanted to do.
It took me half-an-hour to tell them about Silicon Valley Watcher and my plans. And I usually left people confused . . . and I felt confused myself.
It took me the whole summer to distill my pitch into my Silicon Valley Minute: "Silicon Valley Watcher is an online news magazine reporting on the business and culture of Silicon Valley." It's evolved a little beyond that to "the business of media and technology" but it is still way under a minute.
It sounds simple, and it should sound simple, but we all know that simple is tough.
Last year I set up a little experiment, a side project: Silicon Valley Minute to help companies with their pitch. I'd had the domain name for a while.
I'm relaunching Silicon Valley Minute. Take a look at these five posts. Not long after they did their Silicon Valley Minute, three of these companies were acquired by Cisco, Google and Oracle. Five more posts next week, and more. Here is one of them: Securent - Rajiv Gupta, CEO (acquired by Cisco).
I will be shooting lots of video "minutes" as I move around the valley and the conferences and also posting them here on Silicon Valley Watcher.
And if you want to make a video minute of your company I'll post it up for free, just send me the video player embed code and the description of your company from your web site, including links. I won’t edit it at all– after all it's your pitch.
I’m hoping Silicon Valley Minute can help companies anywhere, not just in Silicon Valley, or even the tech sector, hone their pitch and maybe get some feedback. And in the process, it might help them succeed.
Having a decent pitch doesn’t require any startup capital and it might even get you some. I look forward to viewing your Silicon Valley minutes!
Please send your Silicon Valley Minute, with your video embed code plus text description, to publish@siliconvalleyminute.com.
- - - - - - -If you need professional help creating your Silicon Valley Minute, or any video service at all, please contact SF Media Collective. This is a team of people that I worked with at Podtech.net and includes other top video services experts handling all aspects of creation, distribution and attention.
I'm very grateful to my sponsors. Over the past three years they have enabled me to concentrate on reporting and have been very supportive of my work.
I'm making some changes. I want to showcase the social/new media work that my sponsors have been doing rather than just showing their logos at the top of my page. Over on the the right of this page you'll see a good example of what I mean: Intel with a video player and some links to its latest and most popular blog posts.
This can be encapsulated into a widget that can then be shared on other sites. I'm offering this type of showcase to all my sponsors and I'm talking with some large PR companies too. The PR firms will get to showcase their own new media practices and also their clients.
There will be five side widgets and a super-widget slot on top of the page. The five side widgets will be rotated daily so that each one takes turns being the lead widget above the fold. I'll be announcing additional sponsors very soon. Contact me tom(at)siliconvalleywatcher.com if you'd like to reserve a spot.
I think this is a much better type of promotion than traditional advertising or marketing because it shows what each company is publishing and its involvement in its communities.
I had the great pleasure of hosting a Japanese TV crew, (the equivalent of PBS here) as they explored my idea of Silicon Valley turning into "Media Valley."
Last week I asked people to pitch me through Facebook because my Gmail mailbox gets flooded with (non-spam) email and sometimes the pitches get lost in the white noise of my 38,373 (and counting) unread emails.
Gmail becomes Guilt-mail because I don't mean to ignore people's emails or appear to be rude. I read and reply to a lot of emails but I can't keep up with them all.
On Facebook my email count is only about a dozen per day and I can easily keep up with that volume. I tend to respond more quickly on Facebook--at least that is true for now.
Also, Facebook lets me see the face of the sender and I remember faces first and names much later. Plus I can see if we have people in common, etc, which Gmail doesn't provide.
However, Gmail does provide a lot of management tools while Facebook is very basic. I would love a Facebook app that can provide me with a decent set of email management tools. That would be a killer Facebook app, imho. Fewer Zombies and more email management please!
---
PS: You can still pitch me through Facebook but Gmail is OK too...
There is a lot of interest in my experiment to give priority to PR pitches through Facebook. Here is my main reason for trying this approach:
I have 37,366 unread emails in my Gmail account, which is my one and only email service, and that is spam-free email. That means that pitches often get lost in the white noise of my inbox.
The unread emails have accumulated over about a two year span. And I'm hopeful that I will eventually get to all of them, but at this point I'm also hoping to get a stick of dynamite and blow up my inbox and start fresh.
While over at Facebook, I'm keeping up with my emails and it feels like a much less stressful environment. I often avoid my Gmail inbox because I won't surface for four or five hours dealing with emails.
I only have a limited number of keystrokes per day, and I have to reserve some of them for my writing, therefore I have to limit my Gmail exposure.
If you've sent me an email and I haven't replied, my apologies it is not personal, it does not mean I don't like you, it is my inability to deal with my email correspondence in a consistent manner. I don't know how people do it.
When I used to use Microsoft Outlook, I had a great way of dealing with emails that left a clean inbox. I would use filters and I would flag messages and I would send them into a "Very Important Emails" folder so that I could deal with them later.
But I would rarely visit that folder because I would prioritize my other tasks first: interviewing people, writing articles, call the kids, eat. Then late at night once I had finished all my other work I couldn't face several hours of dealing with my emails...
At least with Gmail, I can't hide the important emails inside a folder so I do answer quite a few every day. But it is still an overwhelming job so I'm hoping Facebook can become a more manageable inbox.
Also, only the people that read me and are interested in my work will know about my Facebook PR pitch preference and those are the people that I would rather work with anyway.
After some thought I decided that I would like my PR pitches through FaceBook and not through email or phone.
I will only look at pitches that come from my FaceBook "friends." I will give those priority over all other communications channels except for face-to-face, which trumps all other channels.
The reason is that if you are my FaceBook friend you are more likely to know what I've been writing about and what I've been up to. And I'm more likely to know a little bit about who you are.
If you are just pitching me because your boss said you should then I'd rather not respond.
It's an experiment, but I think it will at least lessen the number of people that want to get onto my radar yet don't keep track of what I'm writing about. Which is fine, but I'm looking to cull the noise and work with people who I know in some way. Send me a FaceBook friend request if you'd like to work with me :-)
Happy New Year to all my readers. 2008 is going to be interesting for Silicon Valley Watcher, with plans to expand and bring in new writers and also to focus less on "Web 2.0" and more on IT enterprise and the business of technology.
GigaOm and TechCrunch do a good job writing about "Web 2.0" type companies but they are just a fraction of the companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. And thats what SVW hopes to do, focus more on enterprise IT companies, and other tech companies that don't get much attention from the media.
Over the next few days I will post a few articles about my travels to London and New York in December, and some of the big changes that technology is having on media companies--especially in London, where outsourcing of journalist jobs to India is happening at an accelerating pace.
Furthermore...CES
I hadn't planned on going to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week but I couldn't resist the invitation to a "blogger" media bus. The bus is a pimped out high tech media broadcast studio on wheels. It sets off from the Microsoft Silicon Valley campus Saturday morning and returns the following Friday. Sponsored by Microsoft, AMD, Skype, and Logitech.
I'll be on board along with Robert Scoble, Dan Farber, Loic Le Meur, Hugh MacLeod, Jeremy Toeman, Robert McLaws, Jason Dunn, Marc Canter and Dave Winer. Eight hours on the bus with these merry blogsters should be interesting.
It might even be a bit like Ken Kesey's "Further" bus which was filled with the "Merry Pranksters." I'll be playing the role of Neal Cassady, Dan Farber will be Tom Wolfe, Canter can play Wavy Gravy, Scoble can be Ken Kesey, and Winer can be Timothy Leary(!)
The bus was going to be called the Blue Monster but some senior exec at Microsoft objected to the name. Let's rename it Furthermore in honor of the Merry Pranksters.
Marc Canter has been inspired to write a poem about it:
Oh I'll be there, and on a tare
like a funky throbbing notion
of the blogosphare
And as the day transpires
and the folks get tired
I'll ignite the scene like fire
and suggest new fresh faire
For us all to see
like a big Hee Hee
and a enigmatic blogger
in her underwear
So lets video some news
and pour down some Milwaukee brews
and walk the strip til dawn ah singing of the
Facebook blues
(From http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/225589/)
At CES I'll be moderating some of the live video broadcasts from Showstoppers, and other things at Podtech's Bloghaus.
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