Archive for 'Culture & Arts'
Israeli Women: as Woman-y as the Rest of Us
Men are always befuddled by women, right? Well, last week, I felt their pain. I spent a good deal of my time in Israel meeting with female entrepreneurs and bloggers to get a sense of how gender roles were different from Silicon Valley, where frankly, I?m often the only woman in the room.
A key difference: Women are required to serve in the Israeli army along with men. That’s right, the prettiest, girliest, most flirty girls I saw on the trip had all spent two years in khakis carrying machine guns. In fact,
Israeli blogger Orli Yakuel used to fold parachutes in the army. She
and her troupe got to jump out of planes as a “bonus.” They frequently
went before the men, because they were less scared, and well, no Israeli
men wanted to be shown up by a bunch of girls. Wow. I mean, we like to
say “girl power!” in the U.S. when we change a tire. But that is
intense.
But the army hardly made these women macho or masculine. Interestingly Liat Vardi?who is co-founding Blogla, a portal for women with Maya Miller?said
serving in the army helped her discover her femininity. They learned
there are many areas where women are just better than men, like
negotiation.
As the girls talked, I was getting very excited, imagining a country of
bad-ass women who have none of our hang-ups in the U.S. You know, lower
pay, being considered a “bitch” if you?re successful in business,
always being judged by what you wear. Imagine a guy trying to bully you if he knew you used to run around with a machine gun jumping out of a planes? So much of gender roles boil down to confidence. I went to a fantastic all girls school for 13 years and I credit it for a belief that I could do whatever I wanted. But if I’d been in the army? Forget it. I’d be 90% more bad-ass, at least. Boo me on stage? Pssshh. Big deal! I’m a commando! Watch yourself, coder!
Well, it?s not quite that rosy. Apparently there are just hang-ups that come
with the gender no matter how well you can hit a target with an uzi.
For one, both Liat and Orli confess to being horrible at
negotiating when it comes to their own salaries. How is that possible? (For what it’s worth: Kara Swisher’s advice is to pretend you are a lesbian while you negotiate. That actually works.)
Perhaps the fact that it’s required– hence not a novelty– to be in the military as a woman in Israel means it doesn’t have the same cultural impact it would in the U.S.? (Please, weigh in in the comments, Israelis!) Still, I think overall, Israeli women have a leg up on us. They’re just tougher. How could they not be? I am totally rooting for them to prove it.
Of course, there?s the other endemic girl quality we all share: boy-craziness. Liat blushed showing us her engagement ring and gushing about her talented chef of a fiance who keeps her and Maya in high quality organic meals as they scrape by on startup wages. (Blogla is looking for angel investment, btw, something there is not enough of in Israel.) Indeed, the girl traveling geeks all agreed there was plenty to be boy crazy about. None of the
girls on our delegation, whether married or single, gay or straight,
could help but notice Israeli geeks are just better looking than the
ones you see in the Valley (Sorry guys! It?s empirically true. You could chart it if you wanted to and I know how you all LOVE analytics!) I asked Orli about it. “Forget the geek
part, Israeli men are just better looking,” she said. I wouldn’t go that far. She did admit there was one cute Valley geek, but I won’t embarrass her by saying who….
One voice: meet up—Craig Newmark and One Voice group
The boy is late teens, handsome and fair, and his eyes are earnest as he talks: “In One Voice we don’t call it peace anymore; we want to bring about an a agreement that will bring bout comfort and a more stable situation than they have now. It’s not peace, it’s divorce…the metaphor says now we are pre divorce and we need to balance the situation…this is the difference between one voice and the normal peace movement that talks about peace and friendship.”
It’s a weekend morning, in Tel Aviv and Craig Newmark, JD Lasica and I are meeting with the director and a group of student leaders from One Voice , a powerful, grassroots peace movement that has engaged Israelis, especially college students, from all over Tel Aviv, Ramallah, and Gaza, as well as drawn in members from the US, the UK, Canada, and other parts of the world. The group is bright, committed, and right now, engaged in making sure this group of American bloggers and funders (Craig is on their board), understands how they work and what they have to offer.
Basically here’s what I learn:
The universities are flash-points for OneVoice recruitment, as are the occupied terrorities. The movement tries to educate through lectures and events, then recruits at various levels of engagement, from signing up for a newsletter (over 100K people in a country of 7 million) to attending events, to joining as an organizer. For the students involved, One Voice clearly offers a change to discuss, a change to create change, but mostly importantly, a means to hope.
Here’s some of what the students tell us:
Marina: This movement involves the public so they can have an opinion for themselves and think about what they support.
Tal: We try to enrich student understanding with lectures and knowledge; we also take the message of OneVoice and careful optimism and take it out on the streets, where we want to mobilize the students and the city residents.
Another student: We ask citizens what would you do to end the conflict? People can become policy makers, instead of just consumers of policy
.
Talking with this group, they make it clear to me that what engages them so deeply is the feeling of being empowered in a frustrating situation where it is so hard to effect policy changes. Because OneVoice is a participatory culture, with youth councils, leadership councils, and local action, it provides a means for these bright engaged students to avoid dispair, as well as to educate and inform.
Listening to the talk flow around me, and seeing the passion in these fresh eyes, it strikes me that like the African National Congress (ANC) for South African Doris Lessing and her fellow progressives in Johannesberg, so long ago, OneVoice provides a means to survive and hang on in an impossible situation by becoming a force for positive change. It strikes me that OneVoice is a great group, not only for what it offers in terms of the conflict, but the positive vision it offers Israel and Arab youth, and through them, their parents, families and neighbors
.
Learn more here:
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Making Time for Silence
At last, I found a caf? in the center of Tel Aviv without air conditioning, without English menus and without an English speaking waitress. Now in my silence, I can think. I can hear. I can see. I can absorb and I can feel.
I taught my waitress the word straw in English. We laugh. She yearns for more interaction as do I. This is a different side of Tel Aviv, the side of town where tourists and trendsetters don?t hang out. I?d love to spend many more afternoons watching people pass by this little caf?, over an iced coffee, the kind with thick frothy milk on top.
For about a week, I?ve been traveling with nine other bloggers throughout northern and central Israel in an air conditioned van to visit companies and organizations in air conditioned rooms. In my travels abroad, I rarely have to deal with cold fabricated air like I do at home and its almost always a pleasure. People here seem to love refrigerated rooms and buses as much as the yanks do.
What I realized today was how little I?ve traveled in a group setting inside or outside the U.S. in the past ten years or so. There?s an occasional side trip with a group of friends or people I know inside a community but these are often short and center around food, drink and bonding.
The bonding on this trip has been wonderful, between learning about each others worlds in more intimate detail through conversation and observation and twittering silly and ridiculous updates to each other, none of which could possibly be understood by anyone else who follow our feeds, and yet we all decide we don?t care. We don?t care because we?re 10,000 miles away from home and can?t stop laughing.
When I travel outside the states, I never travel in groups. I tend to go ?walk about? by myself for hours and sometimes days. I rarely understand a country unless I do. ?Walk about? time allows me to hear a city or town?s soul.
It allows me to listen to its silence and to its noise: its music, accents, car horns, police or ambulance sirens, TV shows, radio chatter in almost always more than one language, passing buses and cars, taxi hoots, a shopkeeper yelling at a vendor, and the way waves crash up against its shore compared to the way waves crash up against a shore I already know.
Americans are not very good at silence, nor are they very good at being alone or making time to be alone. We?re always in a rush to go somewhere else other than where we are. We rush through a meal and applaud restaurants that can get us “in-and-out” rather than ones that encourage a four hour experience.
We?re also often in a rush to try something new and different, which makes us great at innovation, business, science, medicine and biotech. And, we often rush through a conversation rather than being in the moment, sitting still and quietly listening.
We have rushed around so much and for so long, its no wonder that yoga and meditation centers are exploding around the country and Carl Honore?s book In Praise of Slowness was such a hit. We?re starting to learn that there?s value in slowing down and spending time alone, with ourselves.
Despite our hunger for independence and freedom of expression, Americans tend to tour in groups more than they tour solo, rally around sporting events in groups and spend more time in chains, whether they be food or retail chains, than they do in smaller less mainstream alternatives.
Starbucks is almost always the first suggestion when I meet someone for business even in New York and San Francisco where we still have a wide selection of eclectic coffee bars.
I?m not suggesting that all Americans are shallow or don?t take time to reflect or appreciate a unique perspective or experience, but what I am suggesting is that as a culture, we?re more about movement and speed than we are about solitude and serenity.
Israel is birthing some of the same cultural energy for many of the same reasons America did one hundred years ago. People often forget how new Israel is because of the way Israeli business executives and government present themselves to the outside world.
There?s a tremendous amount of support for Israel commerce in Silicon Valley and because of this dynamic, we engage with Israelis on a more regular basis than the rest of America (NYC may be an exception). They live among us, VCs set up shop on Sandhill Road, Israeli engineers move their families across the world to be close to the action, and they hunger for success and the American dream in a way that Europeans don?t.
JVP?s Erel Margalit hit the nail on the head when he said, “Israelis don’t think about what they can lose but about what they can gain. Unlike Europe, they don’t have a plate on their door in a town where their family and history was rooted for 1,000 years. Israel is new and full of immigrants from all over the world.”
Because of this, the country is breeding risk takers who are moving at tremendous speeds and with a lot of energy. In a country that is constantly at war, entrepreneurs don?t fear failure because fear of survival is much greater than a failed start-up. As immigrants pour in, they are learning to live with diversity in the same way we did as a nation 60 years after our birth.
Like America, Israel is a culture driven by movement and growth rather than tradition, status quo and silence. They voice their concerns and opinions loudly in the same way the yanks do. People often view them as abrupt, even moreso than Americans because they don?t have the same infusion of puritan cultures that came over on the Mayflower.
These cultures taught us to be reserved, dress conservatively and not ?rock the boat.? Now, we?re a culture that says: ?ask for forgiveness later,? ?do your own thing,? ?be your own person,? ?speak your mind,? and yes, ?take over the world.?
We?re a competitive nation. So is Israel. They want to win, whether its in war or in the boardroom. Rosenthal in her recent book The Israelis, put it beautifully: “to Israelis, the word ‘no’ is a dare. For example, when I tell an Israeli entrepreneur “the deal is dead,” he answers, “how dead? Is it still breathing?” There is no such thing is a dead deal. Israelis always try to find another way. You close the door on them and they jump in through the window.”
And as I sit here inside this quiet Tel Aviv cafe and reflect in my silence, I look around at the diversity and energy around me. What does it mean to be Israeli? Like a street scene in Manhattan, I see and hear faces and voices from Russia, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, England, Austria, Czechoslovakia, America, Poland, and Chile. And it doesn?t stop there.
I see Arabs that look like Jews and Jews that look like Arabs. I see a country yearning for peace but afraid that the other side doesn?t, so they hang on tightly to their freedom, to their space, to a land they now all call their own even if not everyone in the world agrees.
We all need to call ourselves ?something,? or at least we think we do. And although the world is getting smaller and cultures continue to blend and cross pollinate, we all hang onto a clan we can call our own. It is within the walls of this ?clan? that we ?think? we?ll have peace and where we? think? we?ll find acceptance. At the end of the day, it boils down to three things. Everyone wants to be respected, understood and loved.
While a clan may provide some of this, its only part of the answer. As these lines continue to blur, we?ll all learn that we can find a clan anywhere we go if we choose to wear peace and love on our sleeves rather than fear and hate. Only then will we become citizens of the world, where our clan is each other.
Next time you go abroad, be sure to listen to the silence.
Back Home…Finally!
I got home safely late Friday afternoon after some 20 hours of travel time. I was only gone a little over two weeks, but it felt like months. There was so much crammed into my trip to London, Cannes and Israel that I tried to capture as much as possible here, but really, I’m still processing a lot of it. As much as I was ready to be home, I also immediately wanted to go back everywhere.
So don’t expect I’m done blogging about it all. I’ve also got a BusinessWeek column on London and one on Israel to come, plus a lot of the video I shot on the trip for Yahoo. But right now, I just need a break and some bedrest!
Good recap site for our trip to Israel
The Traveling Geeks group blog helps remind me that these folks are really good writers and photographers, check out the slideshow.
Hope
I didn?t know how I would be affected by a trip to Israel. I thought that maybe it might be some famous temple, some cultural experience, or maybe meeting one of Israel?s leaders or technologists that would have touched me.
I wasn?t prepared for what did: a pair of piercing black eyes that belong to “Michael,” a boy a little younger than my own son, Patrick, who is 14. I was asked not to share names or photos by the people who introduced us. See, Michael?s eyes told me they had witnessed things that young eyes shouldn?t witness.
He was one of a group of students from Darfur who were studying at the Rogozin School in Tel Aviv. Here’s an article (PDF, sorry) that talks about the school and its Darfur refugees. A remarkable school where kids from 29 different countries study together.
Michael told me about his studies, introduced me to his classmate sitting next to him. I asked him if he knew how to use a computer. I knew my few moments with Michael were ticking away, our tour guides had other things for us to see and I wanted to be able to hear more about his dreams. His future. He answered that he did, and knew how to use email and the Web.
My Friend Ish
The impetus for this journey began when I met Ishmael Khaldi, Vice Counsel for the Israel Consulate in San Francisco (covering the Northwest US) at Gina and Dan Waldman’s house in Tiburon. We spoke about blogging and began to develop the idea of bringing well-known bloggers to Israel to report on Israel Innovation.
Over the course of a year we struggled through many setbacks and delays, but remained resolute together. Once the trip was approved by the Foreign Ministry Office in Jerusalem, we spoke daily for months to hammer out the details. In Israel, we became like a pair of Kayakers paddling together over many rapids?hey, these are Bay Area metaphors?we came to trust, respect, and count on each other.
In addition to our close association and friendship, Ish has given me a great gift of understanding something important about Israel that eluded me during many past visits for Jewish organizations and activities. Israel is a pluralistic society and its non-Jewish citizens compose a critical element?Israel will succeed and be secure to the degree they feel at home there living as citizens with Jews?they can be the best ambassadors of Israel’s justice and vision. I came to understand that perspective through his love for Israel from my friend Ish.
I will always be grateful.
(Photos of us will be posted)
The Traveling Geeks Revealed
The Traveling Geeks became a community during our five day visit. We partied in the evening with Israeli hosts and were schlepped in vans from site to site during the day to meet with Israeli VC?s, entrepreneurs, and innovators. We schmoozed, ate, laughed, and kvetched together?so I have come to know these people.
As a group they are bright, funny, curious, passionate and savvy about trends and technology. They are all practitioners of a new electronic journalism that is more experiential, informal and visual than traditional print and broadcast media. Chosen for their audiences and credibility in the technology field, they are as competent and knowledgeable as one could hope for to comment on Israeli innovation. Please read their blogs and view their photos and videos to gain their perspective.
In no particular order, here are my revelations on each of them:
Craig Newmark: One of the best known personalities on the Internet for his Craig?s List, Craig has an amazing following and reputation. He began to Twitter (posts of what he was doing at any particular moment) that had a thousand people for each post within days of his beginning to Twitter. Craig was the resident comic who had us in stitches with his self-deprecating, dry wit. On several occasions he showed what a Mench he really is. Highlight was taking cover together during a rocket attack alert in Ashkelon. So Craig, “We will always have Ashkelon.”
Robert Scoble: One of the most followed bloggers on the Internet, Robert is as cool and funny in person as he is on line. Hard at work or play, Robert has a curiosity and intelligence that just does not quit. He lives, breathes, and snorts technology; his knowledge of tech trends and innovative businesses is awesome. We all agreed Scoble writing for Fast Company is a perfect fit.
Renee Blodgett: Great spirit and lots of energy. Renee is fun, free wheeling, and friendly. Her writing and visuals beautifully tell stories. Her blogs reveal her self and her experiences. She is a great example of the experiential blogger who seeks knowing rather than just knowledge.
Susan Mernit: First time in Israel, Susan may have had the greatest personal transformation of the group. Her personal background combines poetry, creative writing, business, anthropology, arts, and a dozen more interests. Writing from a personal style and interest, Susan brings the social scene and personal interests to her readers with wit and insight. Warm, funny, and bright, Susan is a Techie with heart.
Cathy Brooks: An extrovert, Cathy fills the room with her presence. Her writing is insightful, cool and heartfelt, but her skillful use of visuals and video distinguish her. She is a dynamo. Losing her voice from Laryngitis early in the trip, Cathy still could dominate the conversation just with her facial expressions. Her connection to Israel was awakened a few years ago and this trip had a personal and professional impact on Cathy that you will see in her blog posts.
JD Lasica: A veteran journalist who has focused his talents to expand the reach for groups through the use of technology in the media for social and cause based organizations, JD combines visuals and writing masterfully. JD also blogged on the human side of the Israeli/Arab conflict. He was responsible to get the Traveling Geeks website up and running and made a major contribution through that effort, working with Susan Mernit and her contacts.
Sarah Lacy: A savvy business writer and blogger, Sarah can weave her personality and experience of the moment into her stories. She is about to publish a new book on Web 2.0 (if you want to learn about Web 2.0 check out her book) and understands as well as anyone the potential for business with these new capabilities. Ironically, the moment I will always remember to distinguish Sarah is not from her awesome business and writing acumen, but how emotionally affected she was during the prayers of the Christian pilgrims in the Jerusalem Room of Christ?s Last Supper. Her spontaneous emotion revealed more about the power of the religious experience in Jerusalem than any words or visual images could portray.
Deborah Schultz; The most connected, knowledgeable, and active person with Israel and Israelis among us, Deborah is the best to bridge US and Israel reality in her writing. She knows and feels Israel and her writing shows it. A New Yorker who now lives in the strange land of the SF Bay Area,, her passion, insight, and familiarity with Israelis and new technologies make her the perfect blogger to highlight Israel Innovation.
Brad Redderson: As the only podcaster among us, Brad?s work will be mostly developed from the interviews he conducted with thought leaders and tech innovators on his own time away from the activities of the group. Thoughtful, steady, and dependable, Brad was my volunteer partner in putting the trip together with the Israeli Consulate. He contributed greatly to the project. There were lots of bumps along the way before and especially during the trip when Brad and I could easily consult each other about how to solve problems.
View and read the work on Israel Innovation from these extraordinary people at tg.planetlink.com/. Collectively we hope to contribute to the better understanding of Israel Innovation for those in technology and for those who just want to know more about Israel.
Why Israel is an Innovation Leader?Yet Tough Times Ahead
Gil Schwed had an intriguing answer: Israel began as an experiment in Jewish history. Innovation was built into the Israeli experience from the beginning.
Also technology development has always been a strategic component of the Israeli military advantage. That knowledge gets transfered to commercial applications better in Israel than anywhere else outside of the US.
Combine these factors with the influx of Russian engineers and scientists over the past fifteen years and Israel integration into the global innovation economy?Voila! You have the ingredients for successful innovation. Israel is considered to be the foremost region (after Silicon Valley) for technology R&D ?lots of venture capital, successful start-ups, attractive to many multi-national corporations.
However, there are clearly major problems Israel faces to sustain and benefit from these advantages:
- The wealth is more highly concentrated among a few, while poverty and despair increases for many. The digital divide is a wide chasm in Israel.
- The education system is deteriorating and the continuance of a skilled workforce for technology?essential for sustained economic development in attracting global business?may be seriously limited.
- The Israeli confidence in themselves is lower. I spoke with a wide spectrum of Israelis from religious to secular, family, friends, and new acquaintances. Collectively they signaled to me they are not pleased with what is happening both within Israel and from without. To put some perspective on this, recently 81% of the American public thinks our country is going in the wrong direction; however, they are mostly happy themselves and have more positive confidence in their institutions than the Israelis seem to do. Many Israelis do not have trust in their government, Arab and Iranian hostile intentions, and believe the quality of life in Israeli society is declining.
While Israeli innovation is a bright spot, Israeli mood seems to be in a slump.
Passover is a season of moving to hope from despair, to freedom from slavery, and to strength from weakness. Perhaps we can also see innovation as a driving force for improvement with positive intent from Israelis collectively for themselves.
The Bedouin Village of Khawalid
With great enthusiasm the Traveling Geeks visited Ishmail Khaldi?s family in his home Bedouin village. Ish’s mother and father hosted us with Bedouin coffee (unbelievably strong), cakes, and candies. Ish gave a moving presentation on pluralism in Israel (video link of speech is posted check out Cathy Brooks’ site).
Bedouins are a part of the Israel societal fabric and their loyalty to the State is a living testament to Israeli pluralism. Their house was solidly constructed and the stone locally quarried turns golden in the afternoon light. While Ish was growing up he lived in a tent and was a shepherd. Check out Ish’s life story.
Ish?s parents (photos to be posted) have the weathered faces of people who have worked in the sun. His father worked over 25 years as an agricultural worker for the local Kibbutz. Amazing to see a Hebrew fluent Muslim man wearing a Kefafiyah, yet fully at home to Israel, free to live within the customs and values of his particular heritage. Amazing not because it is exceptional in Israel, but because this is what peace would look like.
My wife Ilene bonded with Ish?s mother and the photos (to be posted) show their affection.
Check out the other posts of the bloggers about the visit to Khawalid. This was clearly one of the most moving and meaningful experiences we have had as a group in Israel.
