Conferences
Wordless Wednesday Eyewriter at #iwny
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 06/09/2010 - 04:54
Wordless Wednesday is a popular Internet Meme where bloggers post a picture, normally without comment. However, I’m adding a brief comment on this picture. I enjoy using Wordless Wednesday posts to bring various ideas from my blog to different communities that might now regularly read my blog.
I am attending Internet Week in New York. Hopefully, my regular readers will have picked that up already, as well as figured out that #IWNY is the hashtag for Internet Week.
The picture was taken of me wearing The Eyewriter, a project of the Not Impossible Foundation. Please check out their work. Friends on Facebook have already seen this photo and I wanted to bring it to a larger audience.
#iwny - Bar codes and Location: Foursquare, Stickybits, Yellow Arrow and the Nokia #N900
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/08/2010 - 15:07An important theme at Internet Week New York seems to be bar codes and location. As participants arrived for Internet Week, many checked in on Foursquare, and some have received a special InternetWeek Foursquare badge.
At the press conference kicking off events, Commissioner of The New York City Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting Katherine Oliver spoke about QR Codes in Time Square on Thursday. PepsiCo announced an agreement with StickyBits about UPC code scanning and there was a discussion the future of location based marketing Monday at AOL Headquarters.
I have been observing much of this through the lens of my Nokia N900 as well as my background interest in many of these topics. I am a big fan of QR Codes and look forward to finding out what New York City has planned for QR code activities on Thursday.
Stickybits seems like an interesting effort to get people scanning barcodes with their mobile devices and might be the application that crosses the chasm from early adopters like myself to the early majority. They have made various choices which I, as a geek, would not have done. As an example, they are focusing on one dimensional UPC style codes instead of the two dimensional QR barcodes. They suggest that people are used to scanning UPC style barcodes, but most people have no idea what to make of a QR code. They may be right, but I do hope that people will learn the value of moving to two dimensional barcodes. It is worth noting that they do support QR codes.
They have released an application for the iPhone and for the Android, which will capture more smartphone users, and they’ve made their API open. Perhaps the mbarcode application for the Nokia N900 can be modified to support Stickybits API. As an aside, the mBarcode application was one of the first Nokia N900 applications I downloaded and it is great. I’ve used it to scan books, product codes, shipping labels in addition to QR codes. There are a lot of nice things that could be done as plugins; for example, an Amazon plugin so when you scan a book you would be taken to a page to review the book on Amazon.
What Stickybits does is that it allows users to leave comments on various barcodes. This seems similar to the Informed Individual that mBarcode is currently interfacing with. It also seems very similar to the Yellow Arrow project, although Yellow Arrow is simply SMS based. That said, you can set up QR codes to send an SMS message to Yellow Arrow, so I could imagine some mashup of Yellow Arrow and QR Codes down the road.
Then, of course, there is the issue of how all this relates to Foursquare. Currently, I use BarrioSquare on my N900. For some reason, it just has not worked reliably for me, but friends have been saying they’ve been having problems with other Foursquare applications, so it may be a problem with Foursquare and not BarrioSquare. I often get around this by going to the Foursquare mobile website. As a side comment, I never got the Internet Week badge, nor have I gotten the crunked badge, even though it seems like I should have received both.
It would seem that a good idea for various companies trying to promote their venues on Foursquare might want to put up a QR Code at their store for people to scan. At the Future of Location Based Marketing panel last night, there was the story of a company that had bought a cheap Netbook that they kept on the counter with a note asking people to login to Facebook and like the store on Facebook. It has help build up their fan base and has gotten many more customers talking about the store on Facebook. A QR Code for Facebook might likewise be a good idea.
Another interesting mobile play is what Mobile Meteor is doing. They did a quick pitch at the Future of Location Based Marketing yesterday. What they are doing seems pretty simple, straight forward, and of value to folks interested in location based marketing. They run an overlay on a website that checks to see if the person is visiting from a computer or a cellphone. If the person is coming from a cellphone, they get much location based information. They suggested visiting a website from a smartphone during the pitch. I did and the website played a really annoying tune.
Afterwards, I found that I had gone to the main website and Mobile Meteor had not recognized that the N900 was a smartphone instead of a computer. It is a common mistake, and to some people, it is no mistake at all. The N900 is a great Linux based computer that I use more and more for various computing tasks. However, in this case, I want it recognized as a smartphone. The folks at Mobile Meteor addressed this quickly over night and by the morning I could see what they were doing with their mobile overlay.
Will this be the year that a location and bar code enabled Internet really takes off in the United States? It seems like there are a lot of great possibilities. The iPhone and the Android will continue to fight for a role in this, but I’m going to stay with my Nokia N900 as a tool for innovators to experiment and push the envelope.
#iwny - Prologue
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/08/2010 - 10:01The storms had broken the hot and humid weather of the weekend, and it was a crisp and clear Monday morning. I had gotten up early to shower, check my email and other social media messages and then hit the road for Internet Week in New York City. Since I was only driving down to the station, I took the old black car. There are plenty of traffic lights between my house and the New Haven Railroad station, and as I approached each one, they turned red. The pessimistic old soothsayer that often joins my thoughts tried to warn me that this was not a good omen, and when I got to the train station, I couldn’t get on to the public Wifi. Yet the more optimistic internal soothsayer pointed out that it was just stop lights slowing me down, and I could still get cellular connectivity. I hadn’t hit any detours, roadblocks or dead-ends.
I skipped the coffee and donut at the train station. I didn’t sit in one of those seats I’ve scoped out that is always squished but has a power outlet. I figured I’d try to get a little more rest as the train propelled me into New York. It was an express which only makes four other stops. Half a sleep, I heard the train whistle as it approached stations and the various rattling sounds as it blew past them.
I love the train ride into New York. So often there are interesting stories to hear, like the young woman from a rich section of the gold coast talking about her struggles with her younger brother’s emotional problems. The story sounded like it could have come straight out of Gatsby. There were no fun stories to listen to, so when I had rested enough, I pulled out my copy of “Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas” that I had picked up at the local library the other day.
It had recently struck me that Hunter S. Thompson captured what blogging and citizen journalism is all about a generation before people started blogging, and I wanted to rediscover his writing and test my hypothesis. No, I did not take a hit of acid and travel with a Samoan attorney, but I carried a little bit of an outsider’s edgy skepticism. Something about marketing people talking about relevancy and authenticity sets off alarms for me. It sounds too much like people talking about things they don’t really do, like some of my nerdy high school friends from years ago that told good stories about their sexual adventures but were probably scared to death of actually talking to an attractive classmate, or the faux-Zen Masters loudly telling everyone what one hand clapping really sounds like.
So, I arrived at the Metropolitan Pavilion ready for the coming week, realizing that it was only stoplights that impeded my progress, and not roadblocks, detours, or dead-ends.
Fear and Loathing at #IWNY #CMSUMMIT #MashableSummit #DIGIDAY #promise etc
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 06/05/2010 - 21:34It is a hot and humid Saturday evening in Woodbridge, CT. We were going to go camping this evening, but there are thunderstorms. Instead, I sit in my office and try to write my long overdue daily blog post. Last week was Personal Democracy Forum in New York and Journalism that Matters in Detroit. On Monday, Internet Week starts in New York City and America’s Future Now starts in Washington. This year, I’ll try to catch a few days of Internet Week and miss America’s Future Now.
I’ve been looking over the schedule for Internet Week and trying to decide which events to cover. Unlike other writers, I don’t have an editor or assignment desk to tell me what to cover. At times, I’ve asked my readers about their recommendations, so if there is anything in the Internet Week schedule that jumps out at you, let me know.
A while ago, I wrote about blogging inspirations, and I mentioned E.B.White. I’ve always enjoyed the way he combined the personal and the political in his essays. Another writer I’ve greatly admired for perhaps very similar reasons and very different reasons is Hunter S. Thompson. As I read through the Internet Week schedule, I felt a little Thompson coming over me, or perhaps a little J.D. Salinger.
One of the events for Internet Week is CM Summit, “Marketing in Real Time”. They’ve lined up some interesting speakers. Fifteen minutes for Dennis Crowley of Foursqaure, and another fifteen minutes for “The Buzz on Buzz” with Bradley Horowitz from Google.
Yet the big blocks of time are set aside for “a fireside chat between John Hayes, CMO for American Express, and John Battelle, CEO of Federated Media” and “A Conversation with Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., Chairman, The New York Times Company”. To balance out Sulzberger’s talk, on the second day they will have “A Conversation with Arianna Huffington, Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief, The Huffington Post”. One of the cocktail receptions will be sponsored by Facebook and the other by Adobe. What would Hunter S. Thompson have to say about the event, or perhaps Holden Caulfield?
It seems like a lot of Internet Week might benefit from some good Hunter S. Thompson style coverage. Perhaps the event that comes closest to the appropriate level of skepticism and irreverence is “Don't Believe the Hype Day” sponsored by Aquent.
On Tuesday, Dennis Crowley of Foursquare gets a full half hour with Adam Ostrow of Mashable at Mashable’s Media Summit. They also have Duncan Watts, Principal Research Scientist at Yahoo! speaking for fifteen minutes. Another interesting session they have is with Alec Ross, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Senior Advisor for Innovation. They fill out a bit of the rest of the time with folks in entertainment and were only charging half what CMSummit was charging. Perhaps that is why they are sold out. Of course they are only one day, instead of CMSummit’s two days.
The big event on Wednesday is Digiday:Target. I’ve covered a lot of Digiday conferences and have put up posts on Digiday:Daily in the past. They run good conferences with interesting speakers and I look forward to Digiday:Target, especially since digital targeting has my attention for a bunch of other reasons.
Thursday, ThinkSocial and the Paley Center for Media, in conjunction with PepsiCo, are hosting a one day conference called The #Promise at Internet Week's HQ. This is a conference my literary guides could be incredibly cynical about. GE, Pepsi and Nokia talking about “making socially responsible commitments”. Is it too late for BP to try and get a spot on the agenda?
That said, I have friends working at GE and I know there are some good people that really do want to make a difference through helping corporations be more responsible. Likewise, I really like my Nokia N900 phone and was pleased to read about their Bicycle Charger Kit, which they recently introduced in Kenya. Likewise, I am glad to hear that according to Greenpeace, Nokia is currently the greenest electronics manufacturer.
The rain has come now. It is cooling off outside. I’ve been spending too much time reviewing the schedule and trying to put together this blog post. So, I’ll post it without reading it over as closely as I do other posts. Hopefully, I’ll have more energy tomorrow. In the meantime, if you’re going to Internet Week, or simply have read the schedule, and have thoughts about different sessions, please let me know.
#PCCT - PodCamp Connecticut, Planning Stages
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 03/19/2010 - 11:51Last night a dozen or so social media enthusiasts gathered in Rocky Hill to share ideas about organizing an unconference about social media in Connecticut. Many of the participants had been to various Podcamps and some had been to other forms of unconferences. Just about everyone already knew each other from CT Tweet Crawls and other social media gatherings. We discussed several issues; should this be a ‘PodCamp’, which is a well known brand trademarked by the PodCamp Foundation? Should it be a Social Media Camp, or some other form of BarCamp? How strictly should it follow the ‘unconference’ format? What, in the end, are we trying to get out of this?
One of the issues is that many of the people already heavily involved in social media have been to PodCamps, BarCamps or related events. There are PodCamps in Boston, Western Mass., New York City and beyond. What would make PodCamp Connecticut special?
Suzi Craig came up with a great suggestion, focusing on, “Work, Live, Play, Connecticut”. How does social media affect our lives here in Connecticut?
For the news industry, the affect is profound. People are now getting their news online. They are sharing information, both that they have gathered, and pointers to interesting stories they have found via social media. The news industry is still struggling with how best to respond to the affects of social media.
Yet other companies need to think about this as well. Word of mouth has always been the best advertising, and now word of mouth is taking place online. How do businesses effectively join in on the conversation in a way that it helps their business?
This leads us nicely to the ‘Play’ aspect of Suzi’s suggestion. People use social media to decide what bar, restaurant, or events to go to. They organize Tweetcrawls to gather with friends at preselected venues. Wise businesses will try to get on the Tweetcrawler’s radar and become a desired destination. People planning other events are wise to try and use social media in a similar manner to draw people to their events.
Another profession, very closely tied to where we live that has always relied on personal networks is realtors. More and more realtors are recognizing the power of social media as a tool to grow their personal networks.
The goal of PodCamp Connecticut is to draw together around three hundred people from all walks of life to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences of social media and how it affects where we work, play and live.
This then comes to the format. I often comment about being an unconference purist. Every session should be a discussion with a facilitator and note taker, but no presentations. A good unconference starts off with a brief discussion setting the framework for the day and doing very quick introductions. I like the style of each person saying their name, where they’re from and three words about themselves, very quickly and moving on. This can work with very large crowds and be very revealing.
Then, people write ideas for sessions they would like to attend on sheets of paper. The sheets get sorted, duplicates combined and the most popular put on a board to list when and where the topic will be discussed. People go to a session and talk about what they are interested in. If they aren’t interested, they exercise the rule of two feet, walk out, and find a session that fits them better.
This is one of the reasons why presentations generally don’t work well at unconferences. The items to be discussed need to be what everyone in the room is looking for, and not some preconceived idea that a presenter has. Too often, I’ve seen people set on doing presentations be disappointed because people don’t want to listen to their presentations. They either interrupt and pull the session back to a discussion that doesn’t follow the presentation, or they simply walk out.
Yet this approach of unconferences is new to many people, and some people find the idea challenging to start with. However, when they think about so many conferences where they’ve sat and listened to a panel talk for forty-five minutes, with the only real value coming with the statements from the audience, converted Jeopardy-style, to questions for the Q&A during the last ten minutes, they often quickly realize the value of the unconference.
Will this group of social media enthusiasts be able to pull off a successful unconference about social media in Connecticut? If there is any group of people that can pull it off, this group seems well positioned. In addition, experienced campers from other PodCamps and BarCamps in the surrounding area are offering to help out. Given the interest in Tweet Crawls and other social media gatherings here in Connecticut, it seems like a great crowd can be gathered. I sure hope so. I’m looking forward to it.
