Archive for 'Traveling Geeks'
Life Imitates Google Earth (TG2009)
In a stroke of Alice Through the Looking Glass, I arrived in London after an overnight flight, took the Heathrow Express (fast train – 15 minutes from the airpor to central London), then switched to the tube (subway) for a short ride to my hotel. (JD Lasica was with me.) Arriving at the Barbican tube stop, which is where we emerge to walk two blocks to the hotel, I stepped out onto the street. This was my reaction (see video below) – didn’t know which was real, the real or the Google Earth (Google Street View, actually). Kind of deja vu because everything looked entirely familiar to me after having gone around the block many times on Google Street View to try to determine the best walking route to the hotel. You can tell from my excitement that it was a real revelation to discover that I could “go to a place” in the virtual world, use the virtual world to make decisions about a route, and then have it actually play out properly in real life. Amazing!
London’s Tower Bridge is on Twitter, I’ll be on the bridge later today
Did you know that London’s Tower Bridge is on Twitter? What does it say? When it opens and closes. Fun example of an object in physical space using Twitter to communicate to the world. That reminds me of the Canadian border crossing that uses Twitter to tell the world how long waits are at the border. I wonder what other physical objects use Twitter?
I’ll be on that bridge with Rocky Barbanica (Building43 producer) and Rachel Clarke (she works for a web agency building websites) later today to kick off our Traveling Geeks week. We’re here meeting a ton of geeks and getting a look at all sorts of interesting tech companies and events.
Tonight, if you’re in London, please come by the Tweetup and say hi. Everyone is invited and tickets are still available.
The rest of our schedule this week is fairly packed. But I will try to sneak people into our schedule. Give me a call at +1-425-205-1921 and let’s talk.
On my way to London and Cambridge, part of Traveling Geeks tour
Hey, here I go, the next Traveling Geeks tour
(remember, I'm more of a nerd, becoming a bit of a nonk, nerd+wonk)
first up, a Tweetup at JuJu in Chelsea
then, we do Rebooting Britain
Traveling Geeks off to London
Below is the press release of our second Traveling Geeks blogging tour to London this week.
LONDON – July 3, 2009 – Traveling Geeks is sending a group of 12 influential bloggers to the U.K. to collaborate with technology innovators and influencers in London and Cambridge from July 5 to July 11, 2009.
The mission of Traveling Geeks is to connect with technology innovators and influencers in various regions of the world, then share what they have learned through blogging, video, podcasts, meet-ups, Twitter and other social media tools.
Through idea exchange and reporting, both countries can become better informed about how to use new technologies to improve communications and productivity, more effectively promote products and services and strengthen communities for corporations, non-profits and the public sector.
The bloggers hope to learn about how the U.K. is effectively implementing emerging technologies, social media tools and e-government initiatives to better serve its citizens, as well as enhance the way government and corporations work together.
The group is a collection of writers, content creators and entrepreneurs who cover technology, business, innovation and social media.
The U.K. Traveling Geeks team includes: Meghan Asha, Renee Blodgett, Susan Bratton, Tom Foremski, Sarah Lacy, JD Lasica, Craig Newmark, Ayelet Noff, Howard Rheingold, Jeff Saperstein, Sky Schuyler and Robert Scoble.
They will participate in a Greenwich Observatory event; a NESTA-sponsored conference about moving forward in the new economy, a U.S./U.K. Speed Date with Seed Camp Winners and UK Leaders; eConsultancy Innovator’s Open Discussion; the TechCrunch Europa Awards; University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School Roundtable on Open Innovation; as well as meetings with Nokia Labs, Microsoft Labs, East of England International, Skype and others.
The bloggers will also be speaking and participating at a Reboot Britain event and the Guardian’s first Media Talk Live event, as well as organizing a TweetUp in central London on the evening of July 5, 2009, which is being sponsored by NESTA and The Conversation Group.
There will be numerous gatherings that will bring together individuals and organizations in the U.K. who are making a global impact through the innovative use of new technologies and social media tools.
Traveling Geeks was founded by Jeff Saperstein and Renee Blodgett in 2008, beginning with a blogging expedition to Israel.
News, updates and other content from the tour can be found at tg.planetlink.com, as well as on flickr, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networking services.
Sponsors include: Intel, Nokia Ovi Maps, NESTA, East of England International, Skype, British Telecom, Rackspace Hosting, Digitrad, Symbian, Flip Video, and ProPhotoRental.
About TravelingGeeks
The mission of Traveling Geeks is to collaborate with technology innovators and influencers in various regions of the world, then share what we’ve learned through blogging, video, podcasts, social media tools and meet-ups. Traveling Geeks was founded by Jeff Saperstein and Renee Blodgett in 2008, beginning with a blogging expedition to Israel. Our hope is that we can inform, educate and connect on behalf of innovators who are changing the world with like-minded people on the planet. Trips are funded by sponsorships from corporations and governments.
More about Traveling Geeks here.
Backstage Pass- Howard Rheingold
Howard Rheingold, who I’ve known casually for a few years, is one of my heroes. Not only does he write well, about current social media topics (Smart Mobs) but he is an artist at heart and like me a child of the 1960s. Though Howard paints (and wears painted) shoes and gardens and does a lot of work from his idyllic Mill Valley (CA) location.
Howard will be a speaker at some of the events we’re visiting, but he’s a listener too, so dear UK native, be sure to get together with him and let him know what’s happening in London and Cambridge.
Backstage Pass- Tom Foremski
Tom Foremski is the Silicon Valley Watcher. We met up at Green’s in Fort Mason, San Francisco, to get phones working and try out some tiny Internet-enabled portable devices. Here’s what Tom is looking forward to learning on the London trip.
Why is this a short post? Well, I have to go catch the BART (train) to the airport in a few minutes. Thank goodness for fast Internet connections.
Reaching Theoretical Broadband Link Speeds (in the US)
I’ve just spent 48 hours “beating myself up” over the Comcast (cable) high-speed Internet system here in San Francisco. I say beating myself up because I was so convinced the problem was Comcast that I spent hours on the phone with them, but ultimately most of the problems were in my own network. [Not all, but most.]
In US cities, the license to install and operate cable television networks is a city-granted monopoly. When cable TV was first being installed, each city opened a bidding process, and cable operators bid to be granted the franchise to install and operate the cable system in that particular city. If they won it, they then had exclusive rights. So in San Francisco, we have telephones provided by AT&T (which originally was Pacific Bell Telephone Company) and we have cable TV provided by ComCast (only – no other provider). Satellite TV lies outside this structure and is available everywhere on a competitive basis, but that’s a different issue.
Comcast also delivers Internet connectivity (and telephone service) via their cables. And that’s the rub.
Comcast suggests they can deliver broadband speeds of up to 12mbs (megabits per second). This kind of speed is pretty good, actually, and is lots higher than I can get on shared office connections at my client sites. It’s also faster than wi-fi can provide, so if you’re using wi-fi on your computer, the Comcast speed is kind of a moot point…it only affects me if I’m plugged into an Ethernet connection in the wall.
The thing I wanted to point out is the graph above showing (left to right) that Comcast give you huge speed when you first connect and start downloading a file (for example) and then it slacks off to a slower speed. It gives you the impression of quick download by starting the transfer really quickly – and if the file is small, you‘ll get it quickly, but the rest of the file comes in at a more leisurely rate, although it is in fact pretty close to the advertised rate. In my case the rate was just under 8mbits/second.
Behind the scenes with @garyvee at one of the best wine stores in the world
Gary Vaynerchuk’s dad came to the United States with nothing in his pocket. He worked for less than minimum wage and built up a business, Wine Library, that today sells $50 million a year in wine in a sizeable store in New Jersey.
Today Gary is building on top of his dad’s work and is taking the store global with a video show, Wine Library TV, that gets about 100,000 views a show. I remember when I first saw the impact he was having when I walked into a meeting at Revision 3 and the team was sitting around watching his show and drinking the wine he was talking about.
Here we visited Gary’s store and got more of how he’s using the 2010 web to bash in the skulls of his competitors. He calls it “bringing the thunder.” I call it the most innovative marketing I’ve seen on the web to date. We talked about a range of things from his dad to how he would compete with his show, if someone else had done Wine Library TV and he wanted in on the action.
This is part of our Building43 series of videos. Come over and join the community there, we’re looking for people who are fanatical about the 2010 web and who are looking to help other people and businesses get into this new world.
By the way, I’m a huge fan because Gary has never mislead me and he’s very willing to tell a CEO his/her wine is crap to his/her face (I’ve seen him do it, even after the CEO threw us a party).
Hope you enjoy, tomorrow Rocky (behind the camera producer at Building43) and me are headed to London to find out what’s happening on the other side of the pond with regards to the 2010 web. Join us on Sunday night at a Tweetup in London.
Off with the Traveling Geeks
I’m heading for the airport, anticipating meeting up with the Traveling Geeks. Look for posts, pix, maybe streaming video next week.
I’m packed
If you were to survey the Traveling Geeks this morning (Thursday before travel day) you’d be unlikely to hear many of us say “I’m packed and ready to go.” But you would certainly hear all of us say “I’m excited and will really enjoy this trip!”
Yesterday a half dozen of us met up at Greens restaurant in Fort Mason (a decommissioned US Army base in SanFrancisco, used for troop/cargo ship departures during World War II, that was turned over for public use in 1974) to review the mobile internet devices (MIDs) that Intel is providing for the duration of the trip. We’ll be bringing several of these with us, and sharing them around the group, so you’ll get some reports on how well they work.
But, we’re suffering the same stress that I think many bloggers suffer — namely, we are each working our “day job” and at the same time attempting to get everything lined up for the London trip. I have meetings until 1pm on the day I’m traveling, and then I go to the airport around 5pm for an overnight flight — and yes, I sleep on these flights — if it’s dark outside the airplane, then my rule is that I sleep in order to adapt. But today some of us are still getting SIM cards into the Nokia phones and getting BTMobile data provisioned on those phones, and trying to take photos and movies and upload them to Ovi.com (Nokia) and MobyPicture and Flickr, and on and on.
In my case, I notice a change in behavior year by year. Today I surveyed what is ready for packing, and it is almost all electronic gear and travel information. No clothes are even ready to be packed yet…they’ll be the easy part. What is important is making sure I have the power adapters, plugs, external hard drives, cables, and the three Flip cameras that I will travel with so I can record the Backstage Pass interviews while we’re on the road. I’ve written about being a cyber-nomad, and I definitely fall smack into the middle of that category. Every device I’m carrying has wi-fi, some have 3G data capabilities, and most of them can connect to each other. I am entirely portable and I’ve told my co-workers and clients that although there may be an 8-hour time difference, I will be online most of the time and available unless I’m in meetings.
Speaking of backstage, we now have all of the geeks equipped with Flip UltraHD cameras, and we have two professional cameraguys who will shoot footage – one of these being sponsored by Rackspace Building43.com and the other being provided locally in London. We have agreed to share all of our footage amongst ourselves, so I expect to see some pretty interesting shots, interviews, and to spend many many many hours viewing, logging and then editing, especially upon my return. While we’re on the road we will be busy from 7am to 10pm every day, so there will be little time for editing. Instead, you can expect to see more “live” video and photos on-the-spot and less edited footage.
Keep watching the Traveling Geeks blog for links to photos and video!
Code of conduct and ethics: Transportation and lodging on this trip are being sponsored by various commercial and governmental agencies (see the geeks’ disclosure page), but we are journalists and have no obligation to report on any specific companies, products or services, nor will we allow sponsorship to influence our reporting. Any gear that sponsors give me will be donated to The Dalai Lama Foundation at the end of the trip. I am treating the sponsorships as if they were donations to the Foundation, since I also expect to conduct some interviews for my Many Paths to Peace series while I’m in London (and then Paris the next week). — Sky
