Traveling Geeks

“Because life is interesting,” Kathryn Corrick.

"Because life is interesting."

“There’s nothing better than a customer telling us we’re the reason they started exercise,” @JofArnold @GymFu #WDYDWYD? #TG2009.

"There's nothing better than a customer telling us we're the reason they started exercise."

“I promote Klout.net because I love interesting start ups and Klout measures influence on the social web.” @JosephMorin #WDYDWYD #TG2009

"I promote Klout.net because I love interesting start ups and Klout measures influence on the social web," says Joe Morin.

Micha Benoliel Interviews the Geeks

Digitrad’s CEO Micha Benoliel interviewed the Traveling Geeks at our London TweetUp. The entire line-up of blogger interviews have been posted to Vimeo.

“We do what we do because we love connecting people,” @btabke @etabke @pubcon #WDYDWYD #TG2009

We do what we do because we love connecting people.

“I do what I do because I love what I do. I live what I do. I am what I do. Social media is my life, my world and all my connections.” @Blonde20. #WDYDWYD #TG2009

"I do what I do because I love what I do. I live what I do. I am what I do. Social media is my life, my world and all my connections."

“I help communities harness social media to be used for social good,” @JDLasica. #WDYDWYD #TG2009

"I help communities harness social media to be used for social good."

On Organizational Growth & Use of Sales at Reboot Britain

Jeff Saperstein spoke today at Reboot Britain in London on opening up organizations for growth. He walked the audience through various case studies, which included how sales is currently being used in these organizations. Here’s a quick overview on two of them in a short video clip.

UK: Digital Inclusion And The Moral Obligations Towards Tech Education

Traveling Geeks: Monday morning we met with Tristan Wilkinson, Intel’s director for public sector, EMEA Region. His main interest is how technology can be used to improve countries’ economies and improve the quality of life for people through work opportunities.

He posed an interesting question: Do the people that enjoy the benefits of the digital economy have an obligation to help those that don’t have the same access and skill sets?

The way the question is phrased doesn’t invite much debate because it shoots straight for the moral high ground.

Mr Wilkinson says he isn’t “selling anything” but he clearly is. As a representative of Intel, it is natural that he would be of the opinion that more technology and more people that know how to use the technology, the better for society and the earning power of individuals. And thus better for Intel as the dominant building block infrastructure provider.

There is a lot of truth to the view that people with technology skills will have better employment opportunities but will this always be true? Our experience constantly shows that as certain technology skills become more ubiquitous, their potential earning power diminishes proportionally. You constantly need to keep climbing up the value chain.

New technologies do provide new jobs as new types of businesses are created but they are also used to reduce the costs of operating a business and that means eliminating jobs.The overall effect over the long term, in my humble opinion, is that our use of new technologies will reduce the number of jobs, it is not a zero sum process. [Please see: The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches, Anything That Can Be Digitized.]

This all leads to a much more interesting question that we face in the not too distant future, which is not about who gets the new tech jobs.

I’d like to know what happens when, say only 20 per cent of our population needs to work in order to provide all the goods and services for 100 per cent of our society?

We constantly create new types of “divides,” our economy thrives on new systems of haves and have nots. At some point, because of the incredible productive capacities we are able to build and to manage as a result of our technologies, we won’t have to have everyone working to produce the goods and services we all need.

In such a scenario, a system of division becomes meaningless and useless — so how will we deal with that? How will we equitably divide up the spoils of our technological progress and prowess?

I strongly believe we have a moral obligation to begin discussing these types of questions before we have to deal with their inevitable arrival.

Distance learning.

Mr Wilkinson spoke about the importance of using technology to educate African children. He quoted statistics that show that an extra year of primary education among African children significantly improves the health of babies, and reduces AIDS infection rates. So yes, if we, the beneficiaries of the digital economy are able to improve the primary school education of African children then that is a good thing, and it is a moral obligation that we do so.

Fellow Traveling Geek Jeff Saperstein made a great point that removing trade restrictions between the European Community (EC) and African countries would do much more for the health and wealth of African children than using technology to improve education. Trade would lessen the need for aid. Trade is a sustainable form of development — charity is not.

We also discussed “Digital Inclusion,” which is a fancy term for digital divide. Mr Wilkinson said that we have moved beyond the simple issue of access and we need a more ambitious definition.

Robert Scoble said that he has little interest in digital divide issues, the issue for him is more of a “friend divide.” People without rich networks of “friends” will suffer because they will find it more difficult to find jobs, and gain access to people and knowledge.

Interestingly, Mr Wilkinson started off our meeting by saying he doesn’t get Twitter, he would rather be climbing trees with his kids. But by the end of the meeting, and because of constant cajoling from the Traveling Geeks, he registered on Twitter: you can find him @IntelTristan.

He also spoke about being an “immigrant” into the technology world and that it doesn’t come naturally to him, unlike for children, which have a natural digital literacy. I disagreed with this common view of digital literacy. I don’t see a generational divide when it comes to technology but only an experiential divide. If you don’t do it, you don’t know it.

The average age of the Traveling Geeks is probably somewhere in 40s, we are no spring chickens, yet we are in the forefront of using many emerging technologies. Anyone can do the same – regardless of age.

When Mr Wilkinson says he doesn’t feel comfortable using certain technologies that’s because he has chosen not to spend sufficient time with them — which is unusual for someone with his job in giving advice to government organizations. You can’t understand much about social media if you aren’t involved in it.

I will have some video of our discussion coming up later. If you’d like to find out what my fellow Traveling Geeks have to say about this meeting, and also further accounts of our trip during this week, please visit: Traveling Geeks where the posts are being aggregated. You can follow the Tweets with the hashtag #tg2009.

Speed Dating with Tech Entrepreneurs in London “US/UK Speed Date with SeedCamp Winners” as Part of the Traveling Geeks Blog Junket #TG2009

One of the fun events we’ve created for the #TG2009 trip July 5-11th is a “US/UK Speed Date” event where the Geeks are moving from company to company around the room to collectively meet with all of the SeedCamp winnners.

SeedCamp is an organization that matches mentors with technology entrepreneurs. It’s a terrific idea and one that goes beyond just the relationship of a venture capital firm with their investment companies.

I’ve reviewed these organizations in advance and will hope to capture as many of their business models and unique points of differentiation for you on the trip as possible.

Here’s a list of the companies with whom we’ll meet for this event. This is my quick overview of what I got out of just looking at the home pages of each of their websites. I’ll be briefing you more via this blog as I get to hear their stories.

The biggest thing I noticed in reviewing these sites is the terrific work coming out of the UK. The Silicon Valley used to have an unfair advantage of venture capitalists, tech workers and local savvy. No more.

Today I am working out of Utah on my MacBook Pro, starting to write this blog post on free WordPress software that was updated by my tech guy from India (thanks, Satish!). Once you see the creations of these Seedcamp winners, you’ll agree that consumer web service creation is no longer coming solely from the California coast.

Basekit Groupspaces Huddle Kwaga Moo Qype School of Everything Skimlinks Spotify Stupeflix Ubervu Zemanta

Basekit Drag and Drop Object-Oriented Web Site Designer. Hot area for massive growth, according to moi. Can’t wait for this demo.

Groupspaces The next generation of Yahoo! Groups, full of excellent features, like file sharing, payment systems, group scheduling. Finally, someone with an alternative to that heaving elder, Y! Groups.

Huddle Like Basecamp. Interested to see the differences. Global collaborative projects are here and Huddle knows it.

Kwaga Email management system. Perhaps like OtherInBox? Hoping it has support for Apple Mail.

Moo We all love those little cards. Checking in on the advances of one of the most fun, unique companies in the world of printing.

Qype User-generated local reviews. Yelp for Europe and South America (so far).

School of Everything Great idea – sign up to teach something or cruise the database for something you’d like to learn. As Boomers age out, they want to give back and have a lot of skills. Great individual matching opportunities for unique skill sets. Fire dancing anyone?

Skimlinks Site-wide JavaScript to add affiliate link codes to your whole site. If you are a publisher, signed up with a bunch of affiliates, this is a great way to automate links on your site to add affiliate code and get rolled up reporting.

Spotify A new spin on music. Waiting to see the demo. My buddy, Shak Kahn, is involved so I know it’s going to be clever.

Stupeflix Kinda like Animoto – take your photos, images and add your music to create a video. This is absolutely what’s hot right now and I like the new empowering tools for folks who want to be creative but aren’t schooled in the arts.

Ubervu If Twitter Search and Google Alerts had a baby, it would be Ubervu. I’m super high on the meta services for social nets. Like MobyPicture, a syndication tool that let’s you post your images, audio and video to all your soc nets in one fell swoop, Ubervu is a social listening tool that also lets you comment from the ap. This is smart – take out the steps to commenting by helping you reply and comment to any service from one ap. Can’t wait to see this demo.

Zemanta Speaking of “commenting,” Zemanta is a Firefox extention that gives you creative ideas for adding images and other associated content to the comments you’re making on the web. I’ve installed it and will play with it and see if it makes me look smarter.

P.S. At SXSW, I interviewed Dave Taylor (AskDaveTaylor.com) about his blog commenting strategy. At this juncture of the web, you must engage in social listening, and Dave gives some great strategies for commenting and managing your time around responding. Here’s the interview.

Dave Taylor and Susan Bratton Community Powered Podcast SXSW

Original Post – Click Here

Susan Bratton & Dave Taylor on Social Media Strategies for Staying in the Game Without Being Overwhelmed – Coping Mechanisms from @DaveTaylor