Traveling Geeks

Natural Language Oracle – True Knowledge: New Search Technology from Cambridge #TG2009

Last week in Cambridge, the Traveling Geeks met William Tunstall-Pedoe of True Knowledge.

True Knowledge bills itself as a question answering service — a more refined online search service.

Instead of searching for words, you ask questions in natural language, and instead of getting a list of internet pages that may contain what you’re looking for, you get a concise direct answer. According to William, this is similar to Ask.com, but instead of human intervention, they’ve come up with new algorithms and data feeds that can automate the question-search.

True Knowledge has a huge database of facts (170 million and counting). For searchers, this translates into a powerful online personal assistant answering simple questions like When was Barak Obama born? and much more complicated ones like Who has been president of the US since John McCain was born? and How far is London from Michael Jackson’s birthplace? that require True Knowledge to deduce information based on the facts it knows.

True Knowledge has a free Firefox extension called Google Enhancer. After you install it, every time you search for something on the top search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Ask.com), the extension will also ask True Knowledge what you searched for and show you the results:

Here are photos of the TweetUp and the luxurious interiors of the Fitz.

Here is a photo of William and I at the Cambridge TweetUp at the Fitz Museum.

You can keep in touch with True Knowledge via their blog and @trueknowledge on Twitter.

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In the MOO’d to be Creative? Richard Moross Has Some Fun Ideas for You #TG2009

While in London last week, I had the delightful opportunity to meet the founder and CEO of Moo.com. If you haven’t seen all the great things you can create with your images and Richard’s printing capabilities, you should click below to check out the options.

MOO PRODUCTS

Richard Moross of MOO.com

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Howard Rheingold on 21st Century Literacy Skills at #RebootBritian #TG2009

Howard Rheingold Keynoting Reboot Britain

I had the good fortune to travel for a week with Howard Rheingold as part of our Traveling Geeks contingent to England. Being with him 24/7 is delightful. He rolls with the natural hiccups of travel, is cordial to one and all and is a deep thinker about the human condition as it meets the online world.

Howard’s keynote at Reboot Britain was his first pass at a new group of practices he believes are crucial skills for success in today’s online world.

Check yourself and see which you possess and where you can improve.

The five main skills, according to Howard are:

• Attention
• Participation
• Cooperation
• Critical Consumption
• Network Awareness

Howard purports and I agree, that school is no longer enough to educate our students. If you’ve listened to my DishyMix interviews with Alvin Toffler, author of FutureShock and Revolutionary Wealth, Marcus Buckingham, author of The Truth About You or Sir Ken Robinson, author of The Element, you know I believe our schools are failing our children.

This presentation hit home for me as a litmus test to both my personal skills as well as those of my daughter. Howard says learning is happening outside the classroom via participation with others, including via online gaming and socnet interaction. He says that “being an active citizen has values on many levels that support learning.” As I’ve said before, passive consumption is no longer enough.

First there’s attention. In a world of multi-tasking and content snacking, we must continue to pursue focus. It’s a required skill. How is your attention span?

Next are Participation and Cooperation. Howard points to the value of online collective action and collaboration as trends happening now in which we should participate. Here’s my post on next generation collaboration tools. Are you taking advantage of these online tools to fix problems, change the world or just work more efficiently? Your children will be, if they are smart.

Howard Rheingold

Next is Critical Consumption, or as Howard calls it, taking a page from Ernest Hemingway, “Crap Detection.” He rails at the lack of critical thinking being taught in schools today. If we induce children to challenge authority by teaching them critical thinking, we won’t be able to control them in school. Now that anyone can post anything online, everyone must develop scrutiny, fact-checking, rational thought and critical thinking. Is that Wikipedia entry true? Did USA Today fact check that story? Doubtful on both counts.

Crap Detection 101 by Howard Rheingold

Finally, there’s Network Awareness. Who do we know? Who are we leveraging? Are you taking advantage of social networking tools to stay connected and grow your connections? A small number of distant connections has been proven to significantly empower one’s network. Are you proactive in your approach to online networking? Are you using it for good?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these or other skills you think are critical for our real-time, web-connected, networked world.

Susan Bratton and Howard Rheingold

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UK Diary: Friday – Cambridge – The Innovation Capital Of Europe

It’s Friday Morning and it’s an early 7.30 am start for the Traveling Geeks…

JD Lasica is the unsung hero of the Traveling Geeks. He has invested hundreds of hours in organizing this trip.

By Friday morning, his normal patience-of-a-saint is evaporating as he attempts to herd the TG cats into a coach that is far smaller than expected.

Plus, my son is with me this morning so space is even tighter. And on top of everything, last night was a late night and we are all still a little groggy from the grog and the good times at the Europa Awards (please see: ).

Soon, however, we are on our way to Cambridge and the start of another jam packed day. It’s a gorgeous day, not too hot, as we drive through the English countryside, the yellow and green fields and billowing clouds set against an azure sky.

It doesn’t take long before we are in the Pitt Building in Cambridge, the site of Britain’s oldest publisher. And the very impressive Sherry Coutu is running a very tight meeting with presentations from several government agencies and university representatives.

Next: Another panel and we meet Cambridge startups…

Ducklings!

On the River Cam, Cambridge UK, with the Traveling Geeks.

UK Diary FridayWatch – The Traveling Geeks Head For Cambridge

Next on UK Diary: The Traveling Geeks become the Punting Geeks as Cambridge, the innovation capital of Europe, hosts with great style and class.

UK Diary so far:

• – SVW Goes To The Europas . . .
• – Ecoconsultancy At Shakespeare’s Globe – Why Innovate?
• – A Visit To Accel Partners – UK Is Tough On Startups
• – Time-Off For Good Bad Behavior
• – Humpday – Lunch With Skype
• – Dinner With Agency.com
• – Guardian Newspaper Media Panel . . .
• – It Never Rains But It Pours . . . More BT Innovation
• – Seed Camp’s Highflyers
• – The Geeks Eat Dinner At The Top Of The World
• – Reboot Britain – The Traveling Geeks Help Out
• – A Meeting With Intel’s Government Guy
• – Arrival and Tweetup in Chelsea
• – Cambridge And Professor Stephen Hawking
• – UK Startups Look For Funding And Escape From Echo Chamber

UK Diary: Thursday – SVW Goes To The Europas . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyIlECwWlDA

It’s Thursday evening and the Traveling Geeks are at the Europa Awards to celebrate European startups.

The place is already filling up when I get to the venue for the Europa awards in south London. Things don’t look good because I have just one invite and I have my son Matt with me and my friend Heddi Cundle. And security is very tight — they are turning away everyone without a ticket (it’s a $100 entry).

However, a little smooth talking, and a little confusion at the front, and we slip in fairly easily.

I won’t bore you with who won what. (The Europas: The Winners and Finalists)

Throughout the week I’d been hearing complaints from various startups that the awards favored the pals of TechCrunch Europe and specific VC firms but I can’t verify those claims. There were certainly lots of very worthy startups that didn’t get a mention. And a lot of the awards went to well established firms like the popular Spotify, and the highly funded SpinVox – hardly startups.

Mike Butcher, the very capable editor of Techcrunch Europe did a great job of MCing an increasingly loud and alcohol fueled event of a type we don’t get in the US.

(Throughout the trip fellow TGer Craig (Cheap Date) Newmark constantly remarked and marveled at the amount of drinking by the Brits. The ubiquitous TG companion Paul Carr said his drinking was inspired by Charles Bukowski.)

I had a great time at the event and I spoke with lots of interesting entrpreneurs. I’d like to single out for special attention Mathys von Abbe from the fast growing Dutch startup Moby Picture; also, the impressive Hermione Way, founder of Newspepper; and Alexander Ljung, founder of Soundcloud (Europa winner.)

You can see them all and more, in the short video of “SVW Goes to the Europas…” (It’s a little pixelated at first but settles down quickly.)

“I am an entrepreneur because WORK becomes PLAY!,” Michael Acton-Smith. #WDYDWYD? #TG2009

Michael Acton-Smith, Founder, MoshiMonsters.com

My Traveling Geeks Meme: WDYDWYD? What is it?

UK Diary: Thursday – Ecoconsultancy At Shakespeare’s Globe – Why Innovate?

Thursday afternoon the Traveling Geeks are at The Swan, which is attached to the recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre on the Southbank.

The event is organized by Econsultancy , a digital marketing firm, and led by Ashley Friedlein, CEO and Co-Founder (See my photo above.)

There are about a hundred people gathered in a large room. I’m sitting at one of several tables, crowded with people and bottles of water, and we’re talking about innovation.

There are many people from large UK firms at the table, all talking about how they try to encourage innovation within their companies. It’s not easy.

I make several points about innovation. The most important one is that large companies want innovation badly but they can’t innovate. But they want to innovate because there is no end of consultants that tell them they will die if they don’t innovate.

Well, they will die anyway. There is a finite lifespan to large organizations and that’s just the way it is — innovation or not.

An organization is successful because it knows how to monetize a particular business process. Each organization is very bad at changing its culture of monetization. Much better to buy-in the innovation.

Afterwards, I talk with Mathys van Abbe, the founder of Moby Picture, a fast growing Dutch startup (and one of my current favorites.) “Why don’t corporations just concentrate on doing what they do better? They can’t innovate and they don’t need to.” I agree.

UK Diary: Thursday – A Visit To Accel Partners – UK Is Tough On Startups

Thursday morning the Traveling Geeks head to Accel Partners, one of the top European VC firms, to hear presentations from:

• Errol Damelin, founder and CEO of Wonga

• Kristian Segerstrale, founder and CEO of Playfish

• John Newton, founder, Chairman and CTO of Alfresco

• Joe Cohen, Founder and CEO of Seatwave

• Michael Smith , Founder and CEO of  MindCandy

• Celia Francis, CEO of WeeWorld

[Please see Susan Bratton: http://blogs.personallifemedia.com/dishymix/accel-partners-london-hosts-the-traveling-geeks-tg2009-who-is-coming-to-lunch-find-out/2009/07/07/ ]

Accel is still making investments, which is very rare among European VC firms (and Silicon Valley firms too).

I chat with John Newton, an American based in London and CEo of Alfresco, and also Joe Cohen from Seatwave, about the UK startup scene. Here are some highlights:

– It is much harder to found and run a startup in the UK.

– Government policies do not favor startups, there are unfavorable tax provisions for stock options. And the government doesn’t get the digital economy.

– It is hard to find the right people with the right skills in the UK and they cost more.

– Government buys software from the large vendors, very little from startups, 85 per cent of government spending on IT goes to the top 8 US vendors.

– Large US companies headquartered in London tend to tie up much of the top local talent.

– Some UK startups are restructuring outside of the country to take advantage of more favorable tax and other conditions.

– London has a huge number of foreign nationals. You can run a foreign office from the UK by hiring any nationality, it reduces need for larger staffs in local regional offices.

– Risk taking in the UK is changing for the better.