Traveling Geeks

Europreneur Secrets – Favorite Web Aps of European Entrepreneurs- Andraz Tori

This is fourth in a series where I take JD Lasica’s meme “Coolest Power Tools” on a “spin” to see not what our US geeks are using, but what our European Brethren find as their favorite aps. They are digging up some fun new things which may be new to you.

I’ve queried some of my favorite new friends from Amsterdam, London and Cambridge about the tools they love. (more…)

Europreneur Secrets – Favorite Web Aps of European Entrepreneurs- Alan Moore

This is third in a series where I take JD Lasica’s meme “Coolest Power Tools” on a “spin” to see not what our US geeks are using, but what our European Brethren find as their favorite aps. They are digging up some fun new things which may be new to you.

I’ve queried some of my favorite new friends from Amsterdam, London and Cambridge about the tools they love. Here’s the third response, from Alan Moore, Founder of Small Medium Large ExtraLarge Limited.

(more…)

Europreneur Secrets – Favorite Web Aps of European Entrepreneurs- Andy Hobsbawn

This is second in a series where I take JD Lasica’s meme “Coolest Power Tools” on a “spin” to see not what our US geeks are using, but what our European Brethren find as their favorite aps.

I’ve queried some of my favorite new friends from Amsterdam, London and Cambridge about the tools they love. Here’s the second response, from Andy Hobsbawm, Co-founder of Green Thing. (more…)

Europreneur Secrets – Favorite Web Aps of European Entrepreneurs from Traveling Geeks Trip #TG2009

Klaas Wiema and Mathys van Abbe

This is first in a series where I take JD Lasica’s meme “Coolest Power Tools” on a “spin” to see not what our US geeks are using, but what our European Brethren find as their favorite aps. (more…)

Traveling Geeks favorite tech tools

Hey, the folks who went to the UK on the Traveling Geeks tour listed what tech tools they use every day.

Here’re mine:

• Pine, an old-timey email application

• Firefox

• Google calendar

• Google docs

• Google maps

• Seesmic Desktop

• Picasa

• iPhone apps, including Rimshot and Trombone (sound effects)

So What Did We Accomplish?

This morning I spoke with Roland Harwood, our counterpart at NESTA, who did so much to make The Geeks trip to London as productive and beneficial as we all could conceive. We agreed it was an extraordinary experiment with a leap of faith that our formal and informal encounters would have both short and long term beneficial impact on the region as well as for everyone involved.

Our visit, sponsored by NESTA, EEI and other donors, was a pilot experiment to see what would happen if we could turn bloggers, authors, and videocasters loose to communicate about innovation in London/Cambridge. Using the connectivity and immediacy of the Web in service of extending “knowing” rather than just knowledge about London/Cambridge, we took the leap. (more…)

Tech Recap from Traveling Geeks

JD Lasica interviewed me (for socialmedia.biz) about some of the tech we used on the Traveling Geeks trip to London. Topics covered are connectivity using cellular modems (provided by BT), the FeedWordPress plug-in, Flip (Mino and Ultra) video cameras, video streaming (on Nokia n79 using kyte.com), Google Latitude…

You can download and use Google Latitude in the US, but you can’t download Google Latitude in the UK because it is “voluntarily” blocked by BT for privacy reasons (it discloses your location to others).

I just can’t say enough about how much use I get out of the little Flip MinoHD and UltraHD video cameras. I use them for all of my interviews now, and for shooting “trailers” to serve as proposals for projects. (more…)

The World of the Crowd Surfer

In a dialogue back and forth with Martin Thomas recently, we talked “crowd surfing.” Below are some interesting and amusing extracts from his book.

“There is a story, probably apocryphal, about an architect who designed a university campus. On the day of the grand opening, he was approached by the Head of the University, who commented that ‘the buildings look fantastic, but why haven’t you put in any paths to connect them?’

The architect smiled knowingly and replied, “I will come back in six months to put in the paths, once I have seen how the students have chosen to walk between the buildings.” Rather than impose his own views of where the paths should go, or use some elaborate computer simulation model, he believed that an enlightened architect should respond to the behavior of the crowd.

Welcome to the world of the crowd surfer: a world in which a new generation of business and political leaders have learned how to harness the energy, ideas and enthusiasm of today’s empowered consumers. They are not manipulators, demagogues or mere populists.

They have been smart enough to recognize that people around the globe – emboldened and enthused by a new spirit of enquiry and self-expression, and powered by the internet – have changed the rules of the game.

They realize that surrendering absolute control – giving their customers, partners and employees a greater say in the way that their businesses operate – is paradoxically, the most effective way to manage their corporate or political destiny.

Crowd surfers are the people that concur with racing driver Mario Andretti’s maxim that: ‘If everything seems under control you’re just not going fast enough.'”

SaaS Goes Open Source: Kaltura’s Yekutiel Tells Us Why

Kaltura’s Ron Yekutiel talks to us about open source and video. They organized and participated in a SaaS Goes Open Source panel at AlwaysOn this week, together with SpikeSource, Zimbra, Acquia, Fenwick & West and Alfresco.

It’s disruptive he says, but tears down those gardened walls giving corporations better control, flexibility and better integration. More from Ron on the SaaS model, video and open source below.

My6Sense Updates Us

Barak Hachamov and the My6Sense team gathers in Palo Alto to talk about their updates and upcoming iPhone app.